#but i couldn’t justify spending more money on make up products i won’t use that often ㅠㅠ

[the-travelling-witch]

Wish I could copy and paste my eyeliner and eyeshadow- life would be so much easier

it would!! i want to wear badass eyeliner every day but hooded eyes say no (seriously can i do anything but sleepy eyes??)

i recently bought blue and orange eyeliner and i‘m dying to actually use it (for more than doodling fake tatts at least)

[no-gays-in-russia]

The deeper reason behind Judas’ actions

I think one of the most fascinating questions that arise when thinking about the story of Jesus and his betrayal by Judas is the following: why did Judas betray Jesus? What were his reasons? Of course, it was established in God’s plan that Jesus had to be betrayed by one of the apostles, but it wasn’t specified which apostle it was going to be. Then, why Judas? Why him and not Peter, not Simon, not John, not anyone else? From reading the Gospels alone, it might seem like he just did it for the money, but that never felt like a good enough reason for me. One of the main reasons why I love Jesus Christ Superstar is that it tries to answer that question and come up with reasons why Judas could have decided to betray Jesus. Now, in the musical Judas explicicitly tells the audience and other characters about the reasons that made him realize he had to do something (most notably, this is the general theme of Heaven On Their Minds); but still, even in the musical, it’s not entirely clear what his real reasons were. And well, I have my own theory.

I believe it’s safe to say that, before the events of the musical, Judas and Jesus were fairly close, probably more then they were in the Bible. Judas probably had some very strong feelings for Jesus; he noticed it and thought that maybe he should look deeper into them, but after all he was happy and he didn’t feel as though that was necessary. However, then something happened: Jesus got closer to Mary Magdalene, and started drifting away from Judas. Judas was suddendly hit with staggering jealousy, and realized his feelings were getting so intense and uncontrollable that he couldn’t ignore them anymore. However, he still didn’t want to face them and admit the truth to himself; so, when he started feeling such resentment for Jesus and such hatred and hostility for Mary, he thought there must be a different, more noble and reasonable motive behind those feelings. So, he convinced himself that he so despised the idea of Jesus spending so much time with Mary because he felt as though that sort of behaviour wasn’t in line with what Jesus preached and his enemies could have perceived it as inconsistence, which they would have used to try and tear him down. To furtherly support these thoughts that he was creating, he created a whole narrative to justify his worries and his unhappiness, declaring that it all had to do with his values and not his feelings towards Jesus.

How do I know that Judas was jealous of Jesus’ relationship with Mary? Well, first of all, I want to analyze two productions in which the relationship between the three characters is very peculiar and interesting: the 2012 Broadway revival and the 2012 UK arena tour.            

1. In the 2012 Broadway revival, Judas and Mary are actually shown almost being friends with one another, which doesn’t really happen in any other production I have seen; yes, Judas still shows hostility towards Mary, but they are also shown having many moments of affection and complicity; most notably, when Mary sees Judas has hung himself she screams in pain, showing that she deeply cared about him. To me, it always felt like the reason they were so close to one another was that they shared the same feelings for Jesus- they both loved him deeply, but they both were scared by this feeling and didn’t know what exactly to do with it. They also both hurt deeply because they felt as if Jesus didn’t love them as much as he loved the other person (in regards to this, it is important to mention the reprise of Everything’s Alright, in which Judas and Jesus have a tender moment, as Mary quietly observes, right before singing I Don’t Know How To Love Him). This shared experience, instead of keeping them apart from each other, made them get closer. I do have more things to say about the similarities between Judas and Mary’s emotions and the way they act differently, but there will be a whole other post dedicated to that.

2. In the 2012 UK arena tour the exact opposite happens, but at the same time the situation in extremely similar. Here, Judas and Mary both are shown being hostile towards one another. I think the most important thing to note is that, in Everything’s Alright, Mary puts herself in between Jesus and Judas, pushing the latter away and ignoring him as she sings to Jesus. It’s as though she perceives Judas as a threat. A very likely explanation to this is that she just wants Jesus to relax, and thinks that won’t be possible if Judas is around; but of course, I prefer to think that Mary perceives the tension between Jesus and Judas and is jealous of it.

Another element that I believe supports my theory is the fact that Damned For All Time/Blood Money, the song in which Judas definitely betrays Jesus, takes place right after I Don’t Know How To Love Him, which shows Mary singing about her feelings for Jesus. This might seem unimportant, and in several productions it’s fairly insignificant, but there are some in which a strong connection between the two songs is drawn, the main being the 2014 Swedish arena tour. I have a lot to say about this production’s I Don’t Know How To Love Him, so I’ll probably write an entire post dedicated to that, but for now all I’m going to say is that, at the end of the song, Jesus and Mary are having a tender moment, when Judas, who’s been observing the scene, interrupts them and bursts in clear anger and jealousy. There is an altercation between him and Jesus and, immediately afterwards, he goes to the priests to tell them where they can find Jesus. In case the conclusion I am heading forward isn’t obvious, of course Judas is so sick with jealousy at this point that he realizes he will probably have to deal with his feelings very soon and, to avoid that as long as he can, tries to find what he thinks might be a solution to that, hoping that will make those feelings go away.

And so we get to the moment he really acts upon what had been mere thoughts until that point- Damned For All Time/Blood Money happens and he goes up to the priests, choosing to help them by telling them where they can find Jesus. He gives them his reasons for his actions, but what always hit me was how morbidly he repeats them, on and on and on. It’s like he is trying to convince not the priests, but himself that what he is doing is right and needed, as well as trying to convince them that yes, he has very specific reasons for which he is acting this way, there is nothing else to think about. But he doesn’t do the best job, and the entire time he is still hesitant about what he is doing. He does end up telling the priests where to find Jesus, but he immediately regrets it- he never wanted it to end up like that. He just wanted to run away from his feelings. But he is starting to realize he’s taken things too far.

And finally, we get to Judas’ Death. The song opens with Judas who’s definitely realized what he has really done and is in a complete and utter state of panic. There is so much to unpack about this song and it’s so hard not to point out every single interesting detail, but I’ll try to stay in line with the point I am trying to make. Well, Judas is panicking- he has realized that because of him Jesus, whom he deeply cares for as he always has, is suffering terribly, and it will probably lead to his death. He never wanted that to happen, and he would do anything to change it. It’s at this point that he is finally forced to face his feelings, and that moment is shown when he sings “I Don’t Know How To Love Him”. He has finally realized the real reason why he has done all of this; it wasn’t for the money, he wasn’t scared of the crowd, he didn’t think Jesus was betraying his own values, it was none of that: the truth is that all that time, Judas had been in love with Jesus. Those feelings he felt were so strong and unexpected, and he didn’t know how to deal with it. But now he understands it all. And it hurts.                                     

[shy-magpie]

RQG 157

these things get long and are by definition one spoiler after another, so live blog under the cut

pre episode nonsense:

My hopes for this episode are mostly just the obvious: For Zolf to pull out of his spiral; for Azu to talk to someone about how she's doing; for Hamid to find his footing with the Kobolds (loving that they are devoting a proper arc to using unearned privilege/power rather than pretending it doesn't exist); more Cel lore; a Wug; and for someone to shake answers out of the Brorb. Not sure Alex is going to let us get to know the kids individually which makes sense as juggling 7 new NPCs would seriously cut into everyone else's screen time. I think we will get more of Skraak & Hamid working through their issues, and Skraak's helping the kids through recovery. If we are very lucky maybe Zolf & Skraak will talk rather than just have Zolf resent the Kobolds for putting Hamid in a place to fall into old habits. Okay lets hit play!

Episode live blogging:

Intros are quick: Zolf sounds low, Ben sounds higher energy than he was.

Oh the Brorb drawings come better when the other half is distracted but not thinking about the real topic.

Krakens are through out the globe, unknown numbers, not true instances of Shoin, network is down.

Cel and I both react to having Shoin be the one to come closest to a truly non physical form.*

Krakens are cloned brains in robot bodies. Specifically said Daleks not Jurassic Park.

Shoin thinks he sent a ransom note using the Kraken as a threat against the world.

Does not handle it well when Zolf hones in on that no one knows who he is, much less trembles at his name.**

Hamid follows Zolf's lead and twists it towards boasting about beating the Infection. The talking half doesn't seem to know how he did it as clearly as the drawing bit. Unfortunately its strictly surgical which would be hard to reproduce at scale even before you consider the side effects.

Quick huddle with the rest of the team:

Cel always wanted to go to London?

Zolf wants to ask more about how the infection works so they could prevent infection. Wilde thinks he is suggesting using Shoin's solution, I get Alex has to catch people up but I don't like Wilde being a paragraph behind me or underestimating Zolf.

Bryn wants to review the diary. Alex confirms the diary says he had a possible  way to "end it" as a whole.

They go back and Cel feigns being extremely impressed that Shoin might have a way to stop the infection. I think having time to regroup cut him off from his memory of the infection again. Alex spells out Shoin loses coherence whenever they bring up the infection/the time period around when he was infected.

Heal check time. Zolf crit fails. Azu got a 29 and can see where his theory was better than his surgery. It may be an aphasia (issues to with communication. can't get to certain words, some can't be spoken even if he understands the concept; others he can't understand if he hears them even if he uses the word/concept himself. Brain trauma, memory problems more severe the more recent you get, sounds like unable to store short term memory properly so anything longer ago than a week but after surgery likely lost.)

Cel switches to the simulacrum. He verbally dismisses it as a waste of time. His hand keeps drawing based on the previous question re:stopping the infection.

Alex calls for a sense motive. Zolf & Azu see the latest drawing is a landscape using technical notation. Its a barren mine. Yes! it's the entrance to Svalbard. Cel can see its a circuit. Alex makes us/Lydia wait until after he's done with the simulacrum stuff.

Shoin thinks using humans as your base design to improve from is the wrong approach, gives some credit to Francois Henri for taking a different approach.

The circuit maybe to transmit something, it needs an organic component. Cel couldn't roll much better then that so they probably need to kick it towards the Harlequins to set a team on.

Shoin is moaning about paying the bills. Took on the contract to provide Simulacrum fluidics to Damascus for the money.

Drawings change shape get less technical and focus on the cavern entrance. Ben catches it sounds yonic, Alex was trying to not go there but did he really think you could go from cave imagery to seed imagry without stopping there?

Hamid tries to get more on how he caught the infection.

Bryn and Alex spell out that to get answers you ask a real question he won't answer verbally but will answer with his hand, with a decoy to keep the talking him distracted while the hand answers.

Decoy question is about Harrison Campell.

Concept drawing of a person, overwhelmed by an image of a huge figure with lines going from the small to the large? Is he suggesting they plant someone they prepare to be infected, and have them infect it back?

Proofs? Minor changes between the proofs and published version of early Campbell books.

Another review session upstairs. Hamid's red string wall got cited as being useful! Cult of Hades/Wellington may have been the one to hire Shoin to make parts for Damascus. Zolf and Hamid talk briefly, about work and as dry "stick to the subject" as possible but they are talking productively.

Oh Ben finally gets in that the interrogation is hard on Zolf's knees because he has to keep his legs out of the cell. He snaps a little at Cel when they comment on cell vs Cel. Carter suggests "naughty box" which nicely derails that point of tension. Cel refers to Shoin as being more pleasant to talk to than Carter. Not sure if that undermines the tiny Cel/Carter ship or fuels it with tension.

Cel asks who hired Shoin to make Sim parts. He can answer directly. Well directly for him, it seems to be mostly justifying stealing Tesla's work on the basis that Tesla wasn't going to implement his theory. Hamid snipes him with a shot praising Edison to get him back on topic. Shoin says Edison was being backed by a big investor. Is it to much to hope this is Alex finally consolidating the factions? If Hades is Edison's investor (leaving Edison & co as effectively their minions, rather than a faction of their own) and the factory owners we can cut down on sides considerably.

He goes on about how he spied on Henri, religion as money maker. Shoin was directly approached by Hades lot. Shoin made sure his bits won't work since he didn't want competition. Wellington was his contact with Hades. Wellington always had a pair of cloaked figures.  Vinegar + squizard = funny? Could be useful.

Do not follow what is going on with the hand.

Shoin is still unstuck in time and thinks he is going to connect them. Cel unplugs the speaker on his villain speech. Cel induces a dream state by powering him down

~break~

Cel suggests  painlessly killing him. Zolf seconds the idea because its immoral to keep him like that.   Hamid points out the longer the keep him around the more likely it is for someone to be infected. Wilde rules they should kill and seal it off.

Cel & Zolf have an argument about having the Kobolds handle the remains. Cel calls Zolf out on his inconstant stance on whether the Kobolds can be infected because if he doesn't believe that then he is risking them.

Wilde is moving on? Cel suggests letting the Brorb die, putting it in a bag of holding, keeping the bag in the anti magic field.

They can't just call Einstein because using unofficial channels is bad when irregular behavior is a sign of infection(?)

Alex's unhealthy attitudes about productivity are called out when he refers to the time Wilde spends thinking/planning before getting their transport arranged as "working" (with the inverted commas) rather than considering it part of the work.

They work out possible paths if teleporting is off the table.

And the boys are snapping at each other again. Zolf, you can't flip out every time you are reminded that Hamid doesn't have the experience or expertise of a seasoned sailor. Yeah you did leave the team without your skills and maybe the kid was a bit green for a field promotion; but you know what? He did a fine job, and the other choices were Sasha, who wouldn't lead, and Bertie, who shouldn't. Just because stepping down was the right thing to do, doesn't mean you get to lose it when you are confronted with the mere allusion to the idea it had consequences.

Barnes tells Hamid why going over the pole is a really bad idea. That Azu's suggestion is carrying Hamid has troubling symbolism.

Zolf actually comes more or less to Hamid's defense by pointing out that all their options are bad options, so having a go at Hamid's idea in particular is unwarranted.

I'm not going to bother listing out options. They will pick one or won't need to pick one. If we have been a very good fandom Alex may reward us with Earhart coming back as their preferred transport.

There we go, Hamid suggests her, Zolf seizes on the idea compliments Hamid on it, and immediately takes it to Wilde. Thank God he isn't so far down he can't do that. If he isn't compulsively shooting down any hope (especially from Hamid) then he really is on the upswing from the low brought on by quarantine stress.

Lydia isn't happy that there isn't going to be an American chapter. Then again we wrote off Svalbard, so don't give up!

Its the Northwest Passage and its so weird realizing that not everyone has it as a cultural reference. Wonder if it's an Oregon thing or a US thing.

Yes it would have been cool, but I think Alex is not going to let us have cool new story arcs when we haven't played with the ones we have at home.

Einstein and Earhart are our two best transport options. I am a happy fan. Especially if Zolf has to use his family and Earhart’s reaching out to him near the end of the journey to appeal to her. I mean we did get more on Zolf's relationship with his family than I expected after Paris, so I'm not going to sulk if they don't pursue this, but it would be nice.

Conflicted as a fan, its hard to remember that this taking months extra is a bad thing when the end of the series is feeling too close for comfort.

Zolf, look at you leveraging your experience with moving even when things feel hopeless!

Cel I love you, kraken as submarine is brilliant. Air kraken is suggested by Carter.

Hamid plays with the ideas while Alex goes "why?". Because you are going to have to work a hell of a lot harder than that if you want Hamid to see it as a no win situation rather than proof he needs to redouble on cheerful creativity. Feeling like he had no options led to the worst parts of Hamid's life, the things he is truly ashamed of; having few losses outside of those, he is going to make Kirk's Kobayashi Maru hang ups look amateur.

Zolf is heading to the beach.

Cel is checking on their village.

Hamid wants to contact Einstein himself, Zolf says he should talk to Wilde about that. Hamid wants Zolf with him for that meeting. Zolf either doesn't want to be a safety blanket, wants Hamid to get used to dealing with Wilde directly, or completely missed Hamid offering a chance to work together because he is incapable of seeing Wilde as an opponent. He does say some nice things about being a team.

Hamid tells Cel to say hi to Jasper for them. He is good at the people side of leadership. Remembering names and relationships, knowing how to show he cares because it's important to Cel without overstepping. If Zolf can learn to let go of the rank stuff, they could be an unbeatable team of co leaders.

Zolf nods at Azu. Azu smiles proudly back. Alex jokes about not liking giving them time to heal because they coordinate.

Hamid offers hugs to both Cel and Zolf. Because this entire character is a "fuck you" to toxic masculinity and he is not afraid to openly show affection to his friends.

Cel gives him a great hug.

Zolf hesitates but gives him a pat on the shoulder. Hamid's has high enough charisma to make that not awkward. Good kid, accepting that Zolf is reaching out as far as he can.

Hamid talks to Skraak. Hamid is worried about taking the kids. Maybe Skraak can convince them to stay & help Jasper with science. Because RQG loves us and wants us to be happy, they are considering a fantasy some of us harbored since "science" as a serious possibility. Could solve the issue with Alex not wanting the kids to take up too much screen time too. Skraak is the perfect character for Hamid to have as his second. He believes in Hamid, and can be confided in, but isn't going to take an ounce of self pity or bullshit.

Alex that village better be okay. Smoke? Controlled burn. Ben lightens the mood. The tank is still guarding the village. The barricade is up but they are guarding about as well as a village of level 0(1?) characters can be expected to.

They are having a party and there is a bon fire. Because Alex knows we wouldn't have trusted him if there wasn't a little scare with the smoke. !puns

The village is visibly healing since the weather is fixed. They thank Cel but know better than to ask.

Jasper! Jasper is looking good. He stepped in as a leader of the village. Cel and I could burst with pride. Jasper thinks Cel is coming to stay, Cel tries to explain they are going to help save the other villages around the world and mentions that Jasper would like the Kobolds.

!puns

* One day I need to hunt down the right corner of SF because there has got to be a decent amount of trans humanist fiction for trans humans out there somewhere.

**Not sure if I should feel bad for hoping this gives him a safe target for his destructive tendencies. Ideally Zolf would get past that point without indulging his dark side lest he reinforce bad coping mechanisms. Ideally Zolf would have weekly therapy without the fate of the world on his shoulders too. Its the more personal version of looking forward to a fight after Hamid's been stressed because he seems to find cooking baddies cathartic.

[ruewrites]

We’re Blooming Together Chapter 5: Getting Creative

AO3

Ships: Solomon/Asmo

Word Count: 4332

Warnings: None

Chapter 1-Chapter 2-Chapter 3-Chapter 4-Chapter 5-Chapter 6-Chapter 7-Chapter 8-Chapter 9-Chapter 10-Chapter 11-Chapter 12

The walk back was much better with Solomon at his side. Even if he was nervous and a little frustrated at the thought of his Secret not staying in the circle he wanted them to, Solomon talking about his latest research project was nice. His eyes lit up in the cutest of ways when he was talking about something he was passionate about. So what Asmo was indulging his crush a little bit? Who wouldn’t think Solomon was attractive, a bit odd at times, but still attractive. And he could pull off the mystery man act really well, even if he was a huge nerd deep down.

However, the closer they got to his humble abode, the more apprehension built within Asmo. “Do you think it’s too late to run away from home now?” he asked, turning to look at Solomon. He was mostly kidding.

Solomon seemed to think it over for a minute as they stopped in front of the Morningstar residence. “I mean, you could. But you don’t have any of your things, so there’s that, along with the fact that you wouldn’t get very far,” he said.

“Because my car’s in the shop?”

“I was going to say because of Lucifer, but that too.”

Asmo couldn’t help but snort. Solomon did have a point. If any one of them went missing under any circumstance, Lucifer would raise hell. He knew him, and he knew he’d do anything, spend any amount of money to get them back. In other words running away to avoid embarrassment was definitely out of the picture.

With a little apprehensiveness Asmo opened the door, preparing himself for the worst. However, he was met with a strange silence, one he couldn’t quite find comfort in. As he listened closer, he could hear voices coming from the living room.

“You had to just go and blabber to him.”

“You were the one that blabbered to me first! Why would you get told and not me?”

“Because Mammon wasn’t supposed to know,” Asmo huffed, arms crossed. Said brother jumped to face Asmo. Asmo’s arms were crossed, and a frown etched itself into his smooth skin. Solomon poked his head from around the corner and peered over Asmo’s shoulder. Unlike Asmo, he seemed almost indifferent to the scene before him. Eyes moving from Levi, to Mammon, back to Asmo. It took him a few moments before he noticed two more figures sitting on one of the chairs in one of the corners of the room.

Levi held up his phone and frowned, “Asmo you never answered my texts! Why did Mammon get to know about this and not me?”

“Because Mammon went snooping through my room, I wasn’t going to tell any of you,” Asmo frowned, brows furrowing and arms tightening around himself. He couldn’t believe his brothers. Why did they always want to be in his business when he didn’t want them to be?

He felt Solomon move behind him to his other side as he leaned against the open doorway. “Well you did tell Satan and me.”

“You don’t count.”

Mammon narrowed his eyes at Asmo and put his hands on his hips. “Oh. So Satan can know but the rest of us can’t? What? You think we’re all gonna go ‘n snitch to Lucifer?” he huffed. Asmo really couldn't believe that Mammon was trying to call him out right now. Mammon, who already told one of their other brothers about his precious Secret in less than twenty-four hours. And he was wondering why he only wanted to tell Satan.

“Well Satan wasn’t the one that went and told Levi was he?”

“Or us.”

Asmo whipped his head to the corner of the room where the twins sat nestles comfortably on the couch. Beel and Belphie were both focused on a pink sheet of paper in Belphie’s hands and didn’t bother to look up. “Sorry, we heard them going back and forth and got curious when we saw this in the mailbox,” Belphie said, a smirk starting to appear on his face, “Whoever they are, you really have their attention. Wonder how often you’re on their mind.”

“Give me that before one of you gets grease on it!” Asmo’s face was a bright pink, as he went to grab the letter only to have it snatched away by another hand. “Levi!”

“I want to be able to read some of their writing too! Afterall, I’m an expert in this field!”

“Expert?” Asmo highly doubted that.

Levi ignored him and started scanning over the words on the paper. “Well duh. Do you realize how much media utilizes the Secret Admirer trope? It’s practically everywhere, especially in fanfiction,” he rambled, “And- oh they like your laugh.”

“Oi read faster!”

“My letters aren’t for you to read!” Why was it that they didn’t want to hear about his partners any other time, but now they wanted to read all about his personal life? He didn’t have much time to think as a hand slipped onto his shoulder.

“I thought I was the only one in the family that knew.” He hadn’t even noticed Satan slip into the room. He was still in his work uniform and the scent of coffee followed him. “I was wondering what had you so worked up in here,” he said, “So, did Lucifer find out?”

“He hasn’t been home yet,” Beel said, munching down on a bag of chips, “I think he said something about taking Cerberus out on a walk with Diavolo and Barbatos. Is Lucifer not supposed to know?”

Asmo let out a sigh of relief. Good. He didn’t have to cross that bridge yet. He wouldn’t have to try and justify himself to Lucifer. “No. Not yet,” he said, “Now if you would please -”

“Levi! Didn’t you have new news to tell me about that show we were watching?”  Solomon had managed to weasel his way between Levi and Mammon. Asmo knew that Solomon shared interests with some of his brothers, but this was hardly the time to bring that up! Whose side was he on? “I think it was something about-”

“A stakeout! Yes!” Levi grinned, completely shifting his focus, “You know how everything was left on a cliffhanger? Well it was a little off, but they were all in Henry’s car with some you pretty advanced tech! And you really have to catch up  because I don’t want to spoil who they caught. But you absolutely won’t believe who it was! It was almost too obvious, so no one suspected them.”

Then something seemed to click within Levi and a giant grin spread across his face, “Oh! That’s what we should do!” Levi quickly turned to Asmo and gripped his shoulders, “We need a stakeout.”

“Come again?”

“A stakeout,” he repeated, “Just like in issue number twelve of My Secret Crush Affair. While Volume seven isn’t canon, it was still good.”

“That’s not a bad plan ya got there.”

Asmo turned to look at Mammon and rolled his eyes, “Ah yes, because this won’t be suspicious, and Lucifer totally won’t figure us out.”

“You just leave ol’ Luci to me,” Mammon grinned, slapping Asmo’s back, “Your big  brother Mammon is gonna make sure we get you with your lil admirer.”

His brothers were going to assure that Asmo would die single.

Suddenly, Solomon clapped his hands together, bringing all eyes back to him. “Well, this entire situation has been fun, but unfortunately I need to steal Asmodeus away, we still have things we need to get done,” he smiled, somehow managing to free Asmodeus from his brothers and encourage him towards the door. “We’ll leave the plotting to the rest of you, have fun!”

Asmo shook Solomon’s hands off of him as soon as they were out of sight. “What was that about? Do you enjoy the pain my brothers put me through?” he huffed, making his way upstairs, Solomon following quickly behind him, “We don’t even have any more work to do!” Or rather Asmo didn’t feel like being productive anymore. Once they left Solomon’s, he’d lost any motivation to do anything outside of his designs.

“It didn’t seem that bad to me.”

“You don’t understand, you don’t have to live with them. I love them all dearly, but I can’t.” Asmo opened the door to his room and flopped over onto his bed, “And they still have my letter, and they read it before me! The nerve.”

He felt the bed shift a bit and Solomon place something on his chest, “Oh? Are you so sure about that?”

His letter .

“Oh Solomon I love you and your little nerdy tricks!” Asmo squealed, wrapping his arms around his waist and squeezing tight, “Thank you thank you thank you !” Oh he could go on and on about how much he adored Solomon in this moment. Well, more than normal. It was also possible that just maybe Solomon’s little magic tricks had more uses than just for showing off at parties.

Solomon’s hand rubbed against his shoulder, “I know how much they mean to you.” Asmo could feel Solomon’s eyes on him as he let go, fingers dancing along the edge of the paper. Solomon always knew what was important to Asmo, but that’s just how friends were right?  After all, Asmo knew what was important to Solomon. Sometimes he wouldn’t see him for weeks because he became so buried within his studies or a new book he found interesting. Then he would get paragraphs of text messages or hour long phone conversations if they couldn’t meet in person. He liked hearing about it,even if he didn’t understand what Solomon was talking about. He was passionate about his fascinations, and Asmo liked that.

“Are you going to read it?”

Asmo let out a soft hum in contemplation before setting the letter down. “Later. I like to read them when I’m alone. Reading someone else’s words of affection is a very intimate thing,” he said, “But of course you can expect me to tell you all about it later.”  He wished he could have kept the first read for his eyes only, but it couldn’t be helped now. Maybe Secret would be a little more secret next time. Or at least they could be a little more careful when it came to their placement of the letters. What if they wrote something meant for his eyes only? Or what if his brothers interpreted something wrong? Or what if Lucifer found them?

“I can tell you what we can do though,” he smiled, getting up off of the bed, and towards his closet. Hanging up nice and neat in plastic wrap was his class project. “I finished the adjustments, and since you’re here-” He skipped back over and pushed it towards Solomon expectantly. “Try it on? Just to make sure I have it right?”

Of course he did it right. This wasn’t the first project he’d done with Solomon.

Nonetheless, Solomon would still amuse him, and damn did he look good.

The only thing that Asmo couldn’t take his eyes off of was the flower. The silk yellow petals were still closed tightly. Nimble fingers gently peeled them back, making them open up ever so slightly. It reminded him of a starburst unfolding against the night sky. Overall, the slight bloom to the flower added to the design. “Does everything feel alright? Nothing too tight?”

“I think we’re good to go. What are you going to do with it when your project is done?”

“Well, I was thinking I could use it as an example of my work, if you don’t mind me taking pictures of you in it. You are my perfect model after all!”

Solomon leaned against him, eyes shifting towards the corner of the ceiling, a drawn out hum starting to leave his mouth. Asmo snorted and shoved Solomon half heartedly.

“ And my most absolutely, positively, wonderful, bestest friend in the entire world whom I adore.”

Just as Asmo was about to invite Solomon to stay for dinner, his phone buzzed. Solomon unlocked it, eyes scanning over the words before slumping against the counter. “I forgot that meeting was tonight…” he sighed, setting the phone down while carefully unbuttoning the jacket.  “I’ll see you tomorrow. Don’t forget to tell me all about your letter, Asmodeus.”

Even if Solomon wasn’t serious, how could he forget?

******

“Come on Lucifer, come out, just for one night.”

“I can’t, and unfortunately my answer will remain so no matter how many times you ask.”

Asmo was coming down the stairs when Lucifer walked through the door. Currently he was kneeling on the ground, undoing the leash of a very wiggly Cerberus. Diavolo was next to him, trying to make eye contact, but Lucifer’s eyes were fixed on the dog.  As soon as Cerberus was free, he took off down the hallway and then back towards the door before sitting and wagging the weapon that Lucifer called a tail.

“Cerberus, sit ,” Lucifer commanded, before standing and looking down at Diavolo, “It’s my turn to cook tonight. It would be nothing short of irresponsible to  back out last minute, not to mention unfair to the others.”

Diavolo’s frown deepened and Asmo swore his eyes got a little. It was only then that he noticed Barbatos, who stepped in between the two. “Perhaps another time Sir. I can schedule you a time next Thursday? I believe I could shift some things around,” he said, snapping open a calendar from his person. Asmo could only hope he had a secretary as good as Barbatos, whenever he made it big.

“Tonight would be just as swell,” Diavolo insisted, “Besides, things have been busy, incredibly busy. Surely you can take a break just this once! Let me take you out. It’s my treat.”

“You really don’t need to. You’ve already done more than enough for me.”

“Just let me Lucifer, please, let yourself relax.”

Asmo leaned against the banister as he listened with amusement. Sure Diavolo had known Lucifer for a while, but Asmo had known his big brother since he’d been born. Hell would freeze over before Lucifer gave into anything that caused him to deviate from a plan or schedule. Well, anything he considered minor, if it was serious he’d do whatever he could. He liked watching the man try to win his brother over though. He’d asked Lucifer before if there was anything more serious going on between the two of them, but he was only met with a sharp glare that screamed ‘none of your business’. Well maybe it was none of his business, but he still liked to know. Lucifer had always made sure all of his brothers were on their best behavior whenever Diavolo was over. He could still remember how he nervously paced the halls the first time he invited him over and introduced him to his tiny family. Asmo remembered liking Diavolo because he let him put one of his bows in his hair. It was only an issue when his brothers invaded his privacy, but everyone else was fair game.

Usually these little back and forths lasted for a while, and most of the time Diavolo would head home with that puppy dog head of his hanging and Barbatos penciling in a quick four o’ clock for dinner after work. It was always amusing even if he was watching reruns most of the time. Lucifer was just about to win the battle once again when a new voice interrupted him.

“Go on ahead Luci, take the night off fo’ yo’self.”

All heads turned to Mammon, who was standing a little farther down the hallway. Asmo wondered what he could possibly be playing at, or what he had done that might get him in trouble with Lucifer. Then it clicked. He was actually going to make an attempt to throw Levi’s hand into action. No way.

Lucifer’s eyes narrowed and his entire body seemed to become stiffer. He looked like a snake ready to strike. “Mammon-”

“Nah, I mean it. I’ll take the rest of the boys out somewhere else. When’s the last time you’ve had a break huh? Let Dia treat you.”

Diavolo lit up and turned from Mammon back to Lucifer, “See? It looks like you’ll have dinner covered! Come on Lucifer, I’ll even let you pick where we go out to!” Even from where he was Asmo could see the twitch in Lucifer’s eye.

“Mammon. If I even get word or discover that you are up to something-”

“Hey! Hey! Relax! I ain’t plottin nothin!” Mammon said, looking rather offended, “Is it so suspicious that I wanna do something nice for my little brothers and give our biggest dearest brother a night off?”

“He’s being nice Lucifer,” Diavolo said, sneaking one of his hands up to Lucifer’s shoulder, “Come. Have dinner. Enjoy a night off. You’ve been working so hard.”

The tension emitting from Lucifer could have cut the silence of the room like a knife. But his will was cracking. Between Mammon’s offer and Diavolo’s insistence it was hard to say no. Lucifer let out a slow breath, Asmo leaned over the banister a little more.

“Asmodeus.”

Asmo let out a squeak and stumbled back a bit as Lucifer’s eyes turned up towards him.

“Come here. If you’re done with your eavesdropping that is.” It wasn’t a request. Asmo made his way down the stairs and stood in front of his brother. “You and the others will make sure Mammon does as he says-”

Mammon let out a scoff.

“-and let me know if something happens otherwise.”

Diavolo’s eyes lit up and a blinding grin plastered itself across his face. Asmo couldn’t help but notice how happy his brother made Diavolo, or how (even if Lucifer wouldn’t say so himself to their family) Lucifer seemed in better spirits after spending time with Diavolo.  It was sweet. Maybe one day Diavolo could get Lucifer to loosen up.

“Asmodeus?”

“Of course brother dearest.”

Mammon mumbled under his breath, “ Kiss up .”

Lucifer nodded, somewhat satisfied, but still a little apprehensive. He turned to Diavolo and nodded, “Shall we then?”

Asmo had never seen anyone nod faster as Diavolo took his brother’s arm, “ Yes . Don’t worry, I’ll make sure tonight is nothing but relaxing for you! You won’t regret a thing I promise!”

Lucifer turned his head one last time. Be safe .

He cared, he really did. Then they were gone, Barbatos swiftly following behind and Cerberus watching even after the door closed.

“I believe you owe me a thank you now,” Mammon said, slinging his arm around Asmo’s shoulder.

“ Thank you ?”

“You’re welcome!”

Asmo groaned. It was going to be an incredibly long night.

*******

“I can’t think of anything more appropriate than takeout.”

“Mammon.”

“Y’know why?”

“ Mammon I swear to g- ”

“Stakeout Takeout!”

“ Mammon .”

This night was going to be worse than long. It was an absolute nightmare that Asmo couldn’t wait to wake up from. Currently Asmo was in the back seat with three of his other brothers, with Mammon and Levi in the front. If they got arrested because they had too many people in the car Lucifer would kill them. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to find out who Secret was, he just didn’t want to find out like this. Not with his brothers surrounding him.

“I thought stakeouts had steaks,” Beel said, through mouthfuls of food, “You know, kind of like a cookout.”

“I also thought that we were supposed to be in more than one location,” Belphie grumbled, slumped against, Beel’s shoulder. While this was true, currently they only had one functioning car and Lucifer’s was off limits.

Asmo was moving his food across the little styrofoam container. His appetite had abandoned him. How could he eat in a situation like this? It was unthinkable! Besides, even if the chances of catching Secret were slim, they were still there. They hadn’t even really planned how to do this. Mammon just shoved everyone in his car and then sped off down the road.

“Aren’t you going to eat Asmo?”

“Huh?” At first Asmo wondered if Beel was just looking at his food, then he noticed the concern. He quickly looked away and back down at his plate, “I dunno, I’m just not really hungry. You can have it if you want.”

Beel shook his head, the concern not leaving his eyes, “Are you alright?”

Asmo didn’t answer. What if he would be disappointed when he finally met Secret? In all honesty he needed to stop comparing them to Solomon. Solomon was Solomn, and no one else would be like him, and Solomon wasn’t into him. It hurt, but it was the truth. He needed to stop thinking it was him, he would only get hurt when the inevitable occurred.

….

But then again-

It could be him .

Wouldn’t that be the perfect romance?  His best friend, who he adored, falling in love with him. But it didn’t make sense. The handwriting was too neat to be Solomon’s, the curves were too perfect. But it still could be .

“Alright!” Mammon’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts, “Welcome to our official first stakeout to find out who’s been havin the eyes for our little Asmo.” He leaned back in his chair looking back at all of them as Levi remained focused on some sort of software program on his laptop. “Objective number one, come up with a plan of action.”

“Is this because you drove us all the way out to this alley and then realized we had no way of tracking this person down?” Satan didn’t even bother looking up from his book as he spoke. He seemed bored. Satan was more of a neutral participant in the whole thing. Asmo was at least grateful he wasn’t encouraging any of this.

“‘Ey shut it,” Mammon hissed, making Satan smirk. He knew he’d hit the nail on the head. “Anyways, Levi is working on something that should be able to help us out with this whole thing, right Levi?”

“Uh… Maybe?”

“Good enough for me!”

“In any case,” Levi took over, “In order to have a successful stakeout, and catch out perp-”

“They’re not a criminal ,” Asmo interjected. Honestly, Asmo might cry if they were. He really needed positivity coming his way when it came to this… Why couldn’t his Secret just stayed his secret?

“-We’ll need bait,” Levi finished, pretending that Asmo  hadn’t just interrupted him.

Mammon grinned and lowered his glasses, looking directly at Asmo, “And that’s where you come in our darling little brother.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your little Romeo’s only ever left stuff in your bag or in our mailbox. So it’s natural to assume that they know ya pretty well,” Mammon said lying back even further. Asmo would admit, his wording made it sound a little creepy, and he could feel both Satan and Beel’s concerned eyes glancing towards him. “So, reason stands that they would have to be near you at some point in the day!”

Mammon was practically beaming, like he’d just cracked some sort of major mystery. However, Asmo wasn’t too impressed. There was a glaring problem with Mammon’s oh so obvious point .

“Mammon. I am on a college campus. I am constantly surrounded by people.”

Mammon snorted, “Well, we’ll just have someone keep an eye out! Like Beel and Belphie!”

Belphie was already fast asleep on Beel’s shoulder, and Beel had stopped paying attention to Mammon’s plan and was digging into the takeout. However, Beel did glance up for just a moment, looking apologetic as a noodle disappeared into his mouth.

“I’m sorry…. Was I supposed to be listening? If you say it again I promise I’ll listen this time.”

Mammon’s head fell onto the horn of his car.

*******

Your smile lights up my days

Even in the darkest of nights

I know that you would always guide me home

Your laughter dances over my thoughts

Possessing my entire being.

I adore adore you

Everything about you

Everything you are

Has anyone ever told you you’re intelligent?

That you’re so incredibly creative?

You could create a new world if you wanted to

An entire universe.

I would follow you there

Because any world created by your hands would be paradise.

Any being living there would be blessed,

Because you’re kind

And loving

And perfect.

I would follow you anywhere if you asked

And I would give up everything in order to do so.

Think of me,

Your Secret

Saving this letter til after he had got home from this disaster of a night had been a wonderful idea. Asmo could feel a warmth spreading throughout his entire body. Secret cared about more than just his looks. Of course Asmo knew he was attractive, he’d always known. In fact, he’d had partners be with him solely for his looks, like a past girlfriend, who’d said all of their pictures would be beautiful. He hadn’t matched exactly the way she’d wanted for one once, and that was it. Or how another partner had brought him to a party his freshman year of college, only to be shown off to various people he didn’t know. He left back home alone that night, it was all too uncomfortable. But Secret cared . Secret paid attention to him. Secret wrote like there was more to him.

He had to stop the tears from dripping onto the parchment.

Now wonder his brothers were determined to find them.

Even though it was late, Asmo couldn’t sleep. He’d been tired before, when he first got home from their first (and according to Mammon and Levi it wasn’t their last) failed attempt at a stakeout. He’d wanted nothing more than to curl up and go to sleep. But now… Now as he laid there with wet eyes, all he could think about was how it would feel to have his Secret whisper those words to him in the dark.

[ikenbar]

Mr. Love: Ike’s Choice

Author’s note:

This story is one of my own OC for the game Mr. Love: A Queen’s Choice. Except for Ike and her family, all the characters belong to the creators of Mr. Love: A Queen’s Choice. This fan fiction will contain spoilers for the game so, if you haven’t played it yet or are not caught up to Chapter 18 in the game, this is your warning. (Though it will take me quite a while to get to any sort of spoiler and I will mark it as such when it comes to it so you have time :P) This is merely a fan fiction of the game containing my own character and her story. None of this is cannon. All that said, Mr. Love is such an amazing game. It’s so much more than just some Otome mobile game. Its story is intriguing, and the gameplay is addicting in the best possible way. The development team are so respondent and understanding and honestly just want you to enjoy their game. I have! And I will! And I plan to show how much I do through this Fan fiction! I’m honestly just here for a good time so let’s have fun! Right? I plan on posting on Wednesday/Thursdays so stay tuned!! I want to show you guys the world I have been making for so long and my love for this game. So, let's get started, shall we? :D

  Warnings: Talk of death (it’s just talk. There’s no real death. More like existential dread), Talk of abuse (this is just character development. It’s not an angst I swear), Grammar mistakes (I tried cleaning this the best I can but I may have missed somethings. I’m sorry ^^;), fluff, and cliffhangers. A lot of them. Prepare for one heck of a story

Chapter one:

Part one:

There is no such thing as a good way to die. Death is death. There is absolutely no way death could be justified. But that is the last thing you are thinking when it is your life that is at risk. The first thing of course being, “I hope he doesn’t miss me.”

 >>>

It was hard to believe that I had been working as a producer for Ike ’n Bar Production Company for nearly two years now. I founded this company alongside my foster father, Bartholomew Schmidt. Bart had an opportunity to create something. Something that would bring love and entertainment to children and adults alike. Something that would bless the world with its presence.... He couldn’t make it past week one, so he called me in.

I am not one that wavers from the facts. There is a place for everything in this world and I do my best to put everything in that place. I didn’t spend four years of my life studying the answers of the world to be creative. So, when Bart turned to me for help with his new show idea, I was more than reluctant to help.

“Come on.” He begged wrapping his hands around each other, “They won’t let me pitch the idea until the plot holes are fixed. You’re the only person I know who will tell me exactly what is wrong without sparing my feelings!”

“Your TV show idea is a waste of my time.” I deadpanned.

“See?!” Bart stared at me with pleading eyes, “Just read the pitch... please?” After a couple minutes of awkward silence to finally cave. I read it over once. Then twice. Then a third time. I still had no idea what the show was about.

“So, let me get this straight.” I sighed, “It is a sitcom about a teenage girl, who happens to be an alien, living her life as a normal teenager.” Bart nodded excitedly. “But her family and friends have no idea what she is. And she has to keep the powers secret because… reasons.”

“See?!” Bart laughed, “You get it! For some reason the network thought it was confusing.”

“...I’m going to say this, and I want you to keep an open mind.” I handed the pitch back to Bart, “The show stinks. We are scrapping this idea and coming up with a new one.”

“Oh come-...we?”

“There is no way you are going to make it through this business alive without me. So, let’s talk about an idea that isn’t overused and unoriginal and actually has some taste.”

“.... Did you just hire yourself on my team?”

“Yes. Do you have a pen and paper on you? Someone should be taking notes.”

 The new show we had pitched to the network was a hit. A sitcom about a family of robbers evading the police. They are trying to have a normal life as they live on the lamb. We called it, Show Me the Honey. Sending our average amount of views over fifty thousand. We worked on that show as we pitched others and made a name for ourselves and the company. Since I wasn’t one for limelight, Bart took care of the field work as I worked as the co-head of Ike ’n Bar Productions from behind a screen and in my office.

Things were just the way they should be. With me out of the way. Maybe if things stayed that way, I wouldn’t be where I am now. I could be at that desk right now. Working on the next show. Calling on my assistant for a coffee. Telling off the latest intern for screwing up the order of the files. I could even hear my father’s voice again as he calls me with updates from the field. But sadly, all good things must come to an end. This end started with one name. Victor.

 “Victor?”

 I repeated to Bart over the phone, stalling my note taking on the pad next to me. I was at my office that Monday afternoon. The sun was shining through the window behind me and onto my large, glass, desk. The sunlight reflected off my screen and into my eyes, causing my already rotten mood to worsen.

“Yes!” He excitedly sang, “You have an interview with him today at three!”

“That’s in two hours.”

“Right!”

“...Bart. This man is the CEO of LFG.”

“Correct!”

“Loveland Financial Group.”

“Wow, Ike! You’ve sure got this down!”

“...OK hold on, you want me to go to the head of the largest leading investor in all of Loveland and ask him for funding on a TV show that hasn’t even been green lighted yet?! And you want me to prepare for it in under two hours.”

“Oh, come on. Saying it that way makes it sound bad.” Bart pouted. “Miracle Writer is going to be a hit! And we are a well-known company! It's not like we are asking too much from them! Just a little something to start us off. Besides I already told him that my amazing co-head, Ike, was going to be meeting him so there is no backing out now.”

“Bart, why aren’t you going? Aren’t interviews your thing?”

“They are but… I’ve heard some ghost stories about Victor.”

“Ghost stories?” I skeptically muttered as I held my throbbing head in my hands.

“I hear he tends to be… stubborn when it comes to funding companies.” Bart said this in a low voice as if Victor would appear behind him to overhear his words.

“Oh, and you’re informing me about this now instead of a few days prior so I could prepare for such an important interview with him. Makes sense.”

“Ike, I know it’s a little out of nowhere-”

“A little?!” I scoffed lifting my head back up and pulling my bushy brown hair out of my eyes as I arched my eyebrows uselessly to the receiver.

“But just hear me out, ok?” Bart pleaded helplessly. I stayed silent. Bart continued, “Victor is known to be brash. He rarely, if ever, smiles. In fact, his poker face is known to strike fear into even the strongest of soldiers. He yells more often then he praises. His stance towers over most people and it sends a level of power that is like none you have ever seen. But most importantly, he is extremely close minded when it comes to lending his money. So, it would need to take a strong headed and strong-minded person to get through to him. To make him see that they are worth every dollar of his-”

“And you want me to do the interview because he reminds you of me.”

“Man, I can’t get anything past you.”

Bart had a point. I have a tough time with my emotions. Let alone other people’s. I am known to be inscrutable in the office and outside of it. In my defense, my tactless rule over the office is why everything runs smoothly. No one second guesses my commands and, if they do, it would result in an outcome that could only ignite more fear towards me. Besides, showing no emotions trains the mind to adapt and overcome the words of others. Which helps suggesting the amount of words the office has to say about me narrows down to about four letters.

The main reason I don’t mind it all though is because Bart is loved in the office. His bright and fun-loving attitude is a refreshment for everyone there. They all welcome him in with open arms and follow his every word with preciseness. He is so soft with them and normally brings free lunches for the office when he visits. Of course, all that sweet talk makes him a doormat when it comes to asking for things from him, but no one would take advantage of that. And get away with it that is.

Bart can barely talk to me without cowering under my intensity when we are face to face. I can’t imagine what Victor would do to him. He’d probably chew him up and eat him alive.

“Fine.” I caved, “If I’m doing this, I need to start working now. So, I have to go.”

“Ikamara Bikira, you are a lifesaver!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!”

I groaned slightly as I hung up the phone. Interviews made me uncomfortable. How do you start it off? Do you need to make small talk? Would it be rude to just jump into the subject at hand? Should you address people by their first name or something a little more formal? Do I need to smile the whole time? Or should I be serious from beginning to end? I rubbed my temples to soothe my growing headache.

“That man is going to be the death of me.” I muttered under my breath. Though this isn’t the first time he has thrown me under the bus, I owed him my life. He and his wife, Maria, were the first foster family to take me in and want to keep me. I had been through five foster homes before theirs and I had the scars to prove it. I rubbed my arm as I recalled the memories. The first home sent me to a sort of bootcamp. The second home neglected me. Third home gave me too much of the wrong kind of attention. Fourth home made me lose parts of myself. Including feeling in my left arm and my voice. And the fifth home... Snapping back to reality, I smoothed out the sleeves to my shirt and saved the sad excuse of a report on my computer. I can’t let Bart down. It’s just an interview. I can do this. I reached into the cabinet next to my desk for papers on out new show “Miracle Writer” and a couple pods of Advil.

 Stuck in traffic, I impatiently tapped at the handles of my motorbike. Normally traffic at that time wasn’t too bad but for some reason, we were at a standstill. Unable to rub away my ever-increasing headache, I looked impatiently down the line of cars ahead of me. They were stalled at one stoplight. Even though the light was green on our side, the road was blocked by another line of cars ahead of them. Keeping the car in front of me in my peripherals, I unzipped my leather jacket and pulled my phone from inside my blazer. I opened my moments and checked trending. “Super Star, Kiro, Signs New Albums at The New Light Mall.” So that’s why traffic is so horrible. The line of cars blocking the road must be the line of fans heading to the New Light Mall. I looked enviously at the line. Though immensely irritating, I would kill to be a part of that line if it meant I got to meet Kiro.

Kiro was an inordinately talented superstar. The spunky blond-haired, teal eyed man was very popular among teens and adults alike. He was an idol among millions for his talents. Which varied from acting to singing to dancing to even fashion. It seems like this young boy was too good to be real. Many believed he had the superpower to woo people with one glance. I, of course, found this difficult to believe…. Though even I found it hard not to enjoy his presence.

In fact. I was a very big fan of his. He just so happened to be my idol. His music was the main thing that got me through so many things. Moving from foster parent to foster parent, when I had become selectively mute, moving to a new school, the events of the fifth foster house. Kiro meant more to me than most things in my life. But you’d never catch me screaming his name or crying at the sheer thought of him. I had self-control. I had to have it. If any mention of me being a fan of Kiro in the office and my tough manager cred would be flushed down the drain. I had to keep my obsession closeted at all costs.

The cars ahead of me started slowly moving again so I put away my phone and slowly followed. The cars stopped soon after. I moaned and checked the time on my watch. 2:30. Maybe walking to LFG would be faster than this.

Finally, my bike slowly rolled up to the stoplight. Past this light, the traffic was much more free-flowing. I was the second vehicle in line. I could almost smell the freedom. My eyes lazily drifted to the sidewalk next to the stoplight pole. There stood a young man staring intently at his phone. He wore a black baseball hat, a red and white hooded t-shirt, and black jeans. He also wore accessories containing a pair of bulky headphones around his neck and a pair of sunglasses. I looked up at the sky. Dark clouds covered most of it. Why was he so heavily protected from the sun?

The APS from the other side of the street started beeping, signaling to a group of pedestrians that it was time for them to cross. The man started impulsively making his way to the street, not paying any attention to the fact that it was not his turn to walk. I watched as a yellow sports car started making its way down to the light and straight towards the man. I looked up at mine helplessly. Still red. I checked my watch. 2:45. I didn’t have time for this.

I cursed to myself and pulled my bike to the side of the road. I quickly pulled out my keys and dashed down the crosswalk and to the man. The car drove closer to the light. The car’s horn finally started blasting which finally pulled the man’s attention off his phone and to the road. He froze in place as the car came speeding towards him. I jumped off the ground and dove into the man, shoving him off the crosswalk and back onto the sidewalk. Safe from the sports car that now had zoomed past the light and down the highway. I lay on him protectively as I caught my breath. I pushed myself onto my hands and caught the last glimpse of the car before it sped out of sight.

 I cursed at it uselessly. I sighed and finally looked down at the man. “You O-” I held my breath. The fall had knocked the hat off the man, revealing wild, bright, blond hair. The sun shone onto his sunglasses just enough to show his teal eyes sparkling as he made eye contact with me. My eyes went wide. It couldn’t have been him. There was no way it was him.

“You- you saved my life!”

It was him. There was no way you could mistake that mesmerizing voice of his. Especially if you listened to him as often as I did. It was a higher-pitched voice but there was a sense of joy with every word he spoke. As if merely speaking was a gift to him. As hearing it was a gift to me.

“Thank you!” Kiro smiled at me.

(Next)

[aidanchaser]

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: Everyone Lives AU

Table of Contents beta’d by @ageofzero, @magic713m, @ccboomer, @aubsenroute, and @somebodyswatson

Chapter Fifteen The Unbreakable Vow

The first Quidditch match of the year also marked the beginning of the run up to Christmas. After an intensive rivalry game, the castle always transformed into a festive collection of evergreen trees and baubles. It seemed to Harry that there was more mistletoe hung in the corridors than in previous years. Or perhaps it only appeared that way because each time he walked by, a cluster of girls was there, waiting. Luckily, he knew enough of the castle’s secret passages to avoid these traps.

Ron was traditionally jealous of the attention Harry received, and under other circumstances he might have been annoyed at the number of detours they had to take to navigate the castle. However, this year, Ron found it all highly amusing. Perhaps because Ron had his own source of constant attention from Lavender Brown, he did not have reason to be jealous of Harry.

For Harry’s part, he could do without Lavender Brown being attached to Ron during meal times and in the common room in the evening. He preferred to eat his dinner and finish his homework without the unfortunate sounds that accompanied the manic kissing that took place between the two of them. Their intense passion did, however, mean that it was not so difficult to slip away and spend time with Hermione. She was, unsurprisingly, not speaking to Ron.

Harry, as Ron’s best friend, found it difficult to maintain his two friendships. He had to listen to Ron, on one hand, justify his relationship to Lavender at each turn. “I never promised Hermione anything,” he said as they studied in the common room. “I mean, alright, we were going to Slughorn’s Christmas party, but as friends — she never said… I’m a free agent.”

And Harry, in the interest of keeping Ron as a friend, said nothing.

When Lavender came by for her nightly ritual of entangling herself in Ron’s arms, Harry slipped down to the library, where he would often find Hermione. There, he could listen to Hermione justify her definite lack of jealousy. “He’s at perfect liberty to kiss whomever he likes. I couldn’t care less.”

And in the interest of keeping Hermione as a friend, Harry kept his mouth shut. It seemed that the only friend he could really talk to anymore was Neville.

When Harry had told his parents he did not want to be stuck between Hermione and Ron, he had not expected it to be this bad.

As the Christmas holidays, and thus the full moon, drew near, Harry was glad to have the mirror to talk to Remus. It helped to have someone who actually understood. Neville could only partially commiserate, as he avoided Ron as often as possible these days, but Remus knew what Harry was going through. Harry also learned quite a bit about his parents during their time with Hogwarts, and he was particularly surprised to hear that their fights and make-ups were often very public common room events. He was not surprised to learn that Sirius and Peter had coordinated an entire betting pool based on these fights.

“You didn’t stop them as Prefect? Wasn’t Dad Head Boy? Shouldn’t he have done something?”

Remus laughed. “I’m not sure James knew. And, well, I’ve never been able to tell Sirius that he couldn’t do something. He even had an illegal butterbeer trade going on for a while. For someone who was able to turn such a profit in school, he certainly squanders money quickly.”

Harry leaned back into the pillows of his dormitory bed. Hermione may have hated it, but Harry found that <i>Muffliato</i> allowed him to be much more comfortable when talking to his parents through the mirror, rather than having to hide in the bathroom and hope that the bath water would muffle his conversation.

“Are… are you and Sirius talking again?” Harry asked tentatively.

Remus’s smile vanished and the colour seemed to drain from his face. “Er — no. I’m afraid Sirius and I have nothing new to say to each other. Ah — looks like your mother’s finished the potion. Let me pass you off to James.”

Harry had never seen Remus so eager for such bitter medicine.

Once the awkwardness of being carried from one room to another had settled, and Harry had a view of his father’s forehead, he said, “He didn’t look mad at Sirius, but he said that they still aren’t talking.”

“No, I don’t think Remus is angry anymore,” James agreed, and adjusted the mirror so his face was in the center. “His transformations have actually been better since Sirius got back, if only because it gives your mum an extra hand with the healing charms.”

“She did it all on her own before?”

“Sort of. She asked Nympha — er, Tonks to help with the full moon just before Halloween. I don’t know what went wrong, exactly, but Tonks made it clear to your mum that she was happy to help with potions if necessary, but she wasn’t going to stick around for any more sunrises. She wouldn’t say why, but I imagine she and Remus had a fight.”

“Have Remus’ transformations been bad?”

“September and October were… not very much fun for anyone involved.” James ran a hand through his hair, and though his eyes were distant, he smiled at Harry. “Don’t worry. November was much better; your mother’s got it well in hand. And with Sirius back, he’ll be able to help your mother with healing charms, though I doubt we’ll need many of them. I’m sure you can give her a hand too.”

Harry didn’t know how much help he could be, but he was glad that his father seemed to think he’d be useful. “So we’re spending Christmas at home this year?”

“That’s the plan. It’s hard to know what the Order will need from us, but we’ll certainly be here Christmas Eve for the full moon, and we’ll have a leisurely Christmas Day to recover. Speaking of Christmas, your mum mentioned last night that you’re going to one of Slughorn’s parties. Is that right?”

“Yeah, he asked Hermione to make sure I could be there. I really don’t want to be.”

“Your mum didn’t care much for the Slug Club in her day, either. Slughorn was alright, but most of the club was purebloods, and she never felt welcome with them. I hope things have changed for Hermione’s sake.”

“Hermione says she has a good time. You and Remus weren’t ever invited?”

“Remus was too quiet and not good enough in Potions to attract Slughorn’s attention. Sirius and I did, but we always had better things to do than sit in a stuffy room with a stuffy professor. But you’ll have other friends there, won’t you?”

“I suppose — Ginny’s taking Dean. And I asked Hermione if we could go together as friends, but she’s said she’s got someone already. She said I’d better pick someone quickly, or someone’s going to slip me a love potion.”

“Love potions are a dangerous business. They’re not just silly tricks. Be careful. When I was Head Boy I confiscated quite a few.”

Harry eyed the chocolates on the end of his bed that Romilda Vane had handed to him on his way upstairs that evening. He hadn’t planned to open them, but now he thought it might be worth setting them on fire before he fell asleep tonight.

“I’ll be sure to keep an eye on my pumpkin juice,” he said. “Apparently love potions are a popular Weasley product.”

James frowned. “I wonder if they’re effective? I’ll have to talk to them about it…. It’s not right to take away someone’s self-control like that. Headless Hats and Puking Pastilles are one thing, but love potions….”

Harry recalled Dumbledore’s theory that Voldemort had been conceived under the use of a love potion and agreed with his father’s distaste for them, but he still hadn’t told them about his lessons yet, so he bit the comment back and simply said, “I promise I’ll be careful.”

“Take a friend with you, Harry. One friend at a party can make all the difference between merriment and misery.”

“Sure. I’ll just ask Neville in the morning.”

“Why not?”

Harry did not think that Neville would enjoy being asked, nor that asking Neville would curtail the love potion problem, but he didn’t voice his reasons to his father. Instead, he only rolled his eyes. “Good night, Dad. Tell Mum hello from me. Best not to interrupt her while she’s making Remus’s potion.”

“You just don’t want her to tease you about not having someone for the party.”

“You’re the one teasing me.”

“Only because I love you.”

“I love you too, Dad. And Mum. And Remus. And Sirius if you see him.”

“I’ll pass it along. Sleep well, Harry. Sweet dreams.”

“Thanks. You too.”

As Harry tucked the mirror into his bedside table and ended the spell that muffled his conversation, he knew that he would be able to at least partially comply with his father’s wishes. He would not dream of Voldemort, and hadn’t for the last month. Which was excellent, because he was absolutely terrible at Occlumency.

Though his dreams would not be about Voldemort, they would be vivid enough. Luckily, Ron was no better at Legilimency than Harry was at Occlumency, so he had no way to know just what or who Harry had begun dreaming about. Harry was not sure he would survive to see Slughorn’s Christmas party otherwise.

<center>—————————— ✶✶✶ ——————————</center>  

The day of Slughorn’s Christmas party did not bring Harry any reasons for optimism. They were working on human Transfiguration with Professor McGonagall. Harry had found much of the theory familiar, after a summer of learning healing charms with Sirius. They had not, however, spent any time on changing colour. There wasn’t much use for altering hair colour in healing magic.

So while Hermione had managed to give herself eyebrow variations that rivaled a rainbow, Harry was stuck with one blonde eyebrow, and was struggling to understand why his left was so particularly stubborn. Ron, for his part, accidentally Conjured an enormous handlebar mustache. As funny as it was, Hermione’s laughter was sharper than the class’s general laughter. Ron, to the amusement of Lavender and Parvati, mimicked Hermione’s over-enthusiasm to answer each of McGonagall’s questions. He was careful to only raise his hand and bounce in his seat when McGonagall was not looking, so their professor was unable to sort out why the girls were giggling so enthusiastically. Harry imagined that McGonagall was smart enough to suss out some of what had happened when the bell rang and Hermione ran from the classroom. She had grabbed her pencil case and book, but Harry picked up her parchment, ink, and bag and hurried after her. Ron had all the support he needed in Lavender and Parvati.

Harry used the Marauder's Map, which he now kept with him at all times beside his Invisibility Cloak, and found her in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom. It was one most people avoided, and allowed those who needed a good cry an excuse if they were overheard. It was also nice for Harry, who did not feel so terribly uncomfortable walking into a girls’ bathroom as long as it was the one frequented by Moaning Myrtle.

Luna Lovegood was there with Hermione, patting her on the back.

“Oh, hello, Harry,” she said. “Did you know one of your eyebrows is bright yellow?”

Harry had forgotten, and dismissed the reminder as unimportant. “Hi, Luna. Hermione, you left your stuff….”

Hermione turned away from him, and Harry awkwardly turned as well. One night of her crying in front of him had already been too much for her pride. He could allow her this privacy.

Once she’d finished drying her eyes on her pencil case, she took her things from Harry. He’d hardly opened his mouth to tell her he’d go when she hurried past him and out of the bathroom.

“She’s a bit upset,” Luna said unnecessarily. “I thought it was Moaning Myrtle in there, but it turned out to be Hermione. She said something about Ron Weasley….”

“Yeah, they’ve had a row.” Actually, “been having a row,” would have been more accurate, but Harry thought that Hermione would prefer discretion, particularly with Luna Lovegood, who held nothing back.

“He says very funny things sometimes, doesn’t he?”

Harry held the door open for Luna and was briefly grateful that there was no one around to see him coming out of the girls’ bathroom with her.

“But he can be a bit unkind,” Luna continued, demonstrating the exact bluntness that made Harry love her, but wary of confiding secrets in her. “I noticed that last year.”

“I s’pose,” he said, maintaining his neutrality in the war between Ron and Hermione as best as he could. “So, have you had a good term?”

“Oh, it’s been alright.” If Luna was surprised by the change in conversation, Harry could not tell. “A bit lonely without the D.A. Ginny’s been nice, though. She stopped two boys in our Transfiguration class calling me ‘Loony’ the other day —”

In an effort to defeat the tightness in Harry’s chest and the turning of his stomach, he blurted out, “How would you like to come to Slughorn’s party with me tonight?”

“Slughorn’s party? With you?”

Harry wished that Luna did not always sound like she was far away. It was hard to tell if the idea bothered her or not, and if it did, he would love to discern whether it was the party that bothered her or the idea of going to a party with him.

“Yeah — We’re supposed to bring guests, so I thought you might like… I mean… just as friends, you know. But if you don’t want to —”

“Oh, no, I’d love to go with you as friends!” She smiled, wider than she had when she’d first cast her Patronus last spring. “Nobody’s ever asked me to a party before, as a friend! Is that why you dyed your eyebrow, for the party? Should I do mine, too?”

“No. That was a mistake. I’ll get Hermione to put it right for me. So, I’ll meet you in the entrance hall at eight o’clock then.”

A scream of laughter echoed overhead. Harry jumped and looked up to see Peeves, the castle’s poltergeist, hanging from the chandelier. “Potty asked Loony to go to the party!” the poltergeist shrieked. “Potty lurves Loony! Potty lurves Loony!” And he was gone, shrieking his chant across the castle.

“Nice to keep these things private,” said Harry. He was used to rumours spreading quickly at Hogwarts, but this one may have set a new record. When he arrived at the Great Hall for dinner, he thought he had never seen the hall go so quiet, not even when Dumbledore gave the start of term speech. The silence, however, did not last long. It dissolved in a flurry of whispers. Romilda Vane, notably, kept casting dirty looks at both Harry and the Ravenclaw table. Another group of girls, who had eagerly invited Harry to sit with them every meal even though he turned them down each time, now refused to look up from their plates as he passed. Harry thought perhaps he should have asked Luna to Slughorn’s party much sooner.

He noticed Hermione sitting at the end of the Gryffindor table, alone, and started towards her, but he was accosted by Ron, who sat him down and looked at him as seriously as if Harry had decided to quit Quidditch.

“You could’ve taken anyone,” he said. “Anyone! And you chose Loony Lovegood?”

“Don’t call her that, Ron,” a voice behind Harry snapped. He did not need to turn around to know it was Ginny. In fact, he did not want to turn around.

“I’m really glad you’re taking her, Harry,” Ginny continued. “She’s so excited.” And then Ginny was gone, joining Dean farther down the table.

Harry was not as pleased as Ginny, and not particularly pleased that Ginny was pleased. He had sort of hoped that she’d be annoyed. Not that he had invited Luna in order to make Ginny jealous, but he would not have complained if it had been a side effect.

Harry tore his eyes away from Hermione to find Ron staring in the same direction.

“You could say sorry,” he said, taking a page from Luna on being direct.

“What, and get attacked by another flock of canaries?” Ron hastily shoved a bite of stew into his mouth.

“What did you have to imitate her for?”

“She laughed at my mustache!”

“So did I; it was the stupidest thing I’d ever seen.”

This comment went unheard by Ron, who was distracted by Lavender squeezing her way in between Harry and Ron. She did not need all that much room; she mostly sat on Ron’s lap, which Harry thought to be a bold move in full view of the Professors’ table. He weighed the satisfaction of alerting Snape to the unfortunate sounds he now had to eat dinner next to against the betrayal that Ron would feel. It was not a hard decision, in the end. Harry did not have to share a dormitory with Snape.

Parvati slipped into the seat beside Harry and smiled apologetically. He wondered if she was as annoyed by her best friend’s behavior as Harry was by his.

“Hi, Harry,” she said.

“Hi. You alright? I heard from Hermione that you and your sister might be leaving Hogwarts.”

“Oh — I managed to talk them out of it for the time being. The Katie thing really freaked them out.”

Harry imagined his parents were worried too, but it had to be safer here than out there. “Hogwarts is probably safest, despite that.”

“Yes, they admitted that Dumbledore and the Ministry probably have better protection than home might. And anyway, it wasn’t as if the curse got into the castle. Padma and I are banned from Hogsmeade though — at least, our parents have said not to go.”

Harry thought it was only a matter of time before his delivered the same news. Then again, perhaps since his parents knew that Tonks had been there, they trusted that the Order had it well in hand.

“But at least nothing has happened since then,” Parvati said.

“Yeah,” Harry agreed, though he was thinking of the <i>Daily Prophet</i> and all the things that had happened since Katie’s attack, just not at Hogwarts. He didn’t know what else to say to Parvati, but he realised it was possibly the politest conversation they’d had since before the Yule Ball.

Harry searched for some topic of conversation to mask the noises of Lavender and Ron’s public intimacy, and was grateful to be rescued by Hermione.

“Hi Parvati,” she said. “Hi, Harry.” She appeared to be completely recovered, and smiled brightly at the two of them. Perhaps too brightly, considering Parvati had enjoyed Ron’s joke in class, and Ron was currently attached to Lavender like a Flesh-Eating Slug.

“Hi, Hermione,” Parvati smiled. She, too, was a bit overeager in her greeting, perhaps because she had teased Hermione not long ago and wanted it forgotten.

“Are you going to Slughorn’s party tonight?” Hermione asked.

“No invite,” Parvati said. “I’d love to go, though, it sounds like it’s going to be really good…. You’re going, aren’t you?”

“Oh, yes. I’m meeting Cormac at eight, and we’re —”

The Flesh-Eating Slug pulled itself off of Lavender’s face with a slurp and a pop. Hermione ignored it.

“— we’re going up to the party together.”

“Cormac?” Parvati said. “Cormac McLaggen, you mean?”

“That’s right. The one who almost became Gryffindor Keeper.”

“Are you going out with him, then?”

“Oh — yes — didn’t you know?” Hermione giggled, something more akin to Parvati or Lavender and not like her at all.

Parvati stared up at Hermione, eyes wide. “No — Wow, you like your Quidditch players, don’t you? First Krum, then McLaggen — You go through them as fast as Ginny Weasley —”

“I like really good Quidditch players,” Hermione said, before Harry could quite process the comment about Ginny. “Well, see you… Got to go and get ready for the party….”

Lavender seemed to have forgotten all about Ron in the wake of this new gossip, and she quickly leaned over Harry to discuss this new development with Parvati. Ron’s face appeared empty. Either he had not fully resurfaced from Lavender, or he was still processing Hermione’s revenge. Harry, for his part, was divided between wondering who on earth kept repeating something about Ginny Weasley moving through Quidditch players and musing over just how far Hermione would sink for revenge.

Harry arrived in the entrance hall promptly at eight o’clock. He was not wearing the dress robes his great-great grandmother had designed. Instead, he had opted for the simpler red robes he had originally bought in his fourth year. The hem, which had been extended to suit Ron at the Yule Ball, was now just inches too short for Harry, but he had not had any desire to ask Dean for help extending it. When Harry saw Luna waiting, though, he thought they might have made an interesting pair if he had worn the evergreen robes with animated snow drifts.

Luna’s silver robes were glittering with stars, like her earrings. Harry was grateful she had left off the radishes. She reflected the hall’s chandelier as she turned. It was both absurd and dazzling.

More amusing than Luna’s robes, however, were the crowds of girls gathered in the corners and corridors. Some were giggling unkindly at Luna’s appearance. Some were whispering fiercely. All went quiet as Harry met her at the bottom of the steps.

“Hi,” he said. “Shall we get going then?”

“Oh, yes.” She beamed, and Harry could not help but be infected by her excitement, as nervous as the onlookers made him.

“Where is the party?” she asked.

“Slughorn’s office — oh,” he belatedly remembered the manners his mother had drilled into him, “you look nice, by the way.”

“Thank you! You do as well. Ginny’s right; red is a lovely colour on you.”

Harry’s mind seemed to have been struck with a Freezing Charm. As he led Luna up the marble staircase towards Slughorn’s office, he could think of nothing other than Luna’s innocuous statement on a loop, like a broken Muggle record. He was vaguely aware that his silence was rude, but he could think of nothing to say. He thought that if Luna were to ask how he planned to defeat Voldemort right now, he might simply answer, “Ginny thinks I look nice in red.”

When they arrived at Slughorn’s office, the party appeared to already be in full swing. Music and laughter filled the corridor, finally giving Harry something new to think about. He pushed the door open for Luna and together they walked into an office much larger than any teacher’s office Harry had been in before. He wondered if Slughorn had expanded it somehow. It also looked nothing like an office. Green, red, and gold strips of satin draped across the ceiling and down the sides of the room. In the center, a lamp illuminated the office in a dim yellow glow. It did not flicker like candlelight and it took Harry a moment to notice the fairies flitting in and out of it. The music turned out to be a live band, but not any band Harry had heard of. The singer was a woman in an elegant, glittering dress, and the musicians beside her plucked at mandolins.

There were also several clusters of non-students, Harry noted. None of them looked like any Aurors he’d met, so he did not think that they were security. He wondered if it had been troublesome for Slughorn to get his guests access to Hogwarts in these dark times.

Just as Harry caught sight of a house-elf carrying a platter of what looked like miniature chocolate cakes, Slughorn caught him around the shoulder.

“Harry, m’boy! Come in, come in, so many people I’d like you to meet.”

Harry, remembering his father’s advice that one friend could make the difference between an enjoyable time and a miserable time, dragged Luna with him and prayed for the former.

Slughorn led Harry, and Harry in turn led Luna, through the crowd of party guests to two men in dark robes, as different in size and stature as Fabian and Gideon Prewett, standing not far from the singer.

“Harry,” Slughorn announced, “I’d like you to meet Eldred Worple, an old student of mine, author of <i>Blood Brothers: My Life Amongst the Vampires</i> — and of course, his friend Sanguini.”

The short, round man with glasses and bright red cheeks shook Harry’s hand eagerly.

“Harry Potter! I am simply delighted!”

Harry did his best to smile, and eyed the tall, thin man with waxy skin and long, dark hair. It was easy to see why someone had mistaken Regulus Black for a vampire.

“I was just saying,” Worple continued, “where is the biography of Harry Potter for which we have all been waiting?”

Harry tore his eyes from Sanguini and looked for the joke on Worple’s face. He was disappointed to see nothing but earnestness. “Er — were you?”

“Just as modest as Horace described! But, seriously —” the enthusiasm faded a little, and Worple finally stopped shaking Harry’s hand, “I would be delighted to write it myself — people are craving to know more about you, dear boy, craving! If you were prepared to grant me a few interviews, say in four or five-hour sessions, why, we could have the book finished within months. And all with very little effort on your part, I assure you.”

“Er — all that time?” Harry was not sure he could manage to talk about himself for more than fifteen minutes, let alone for four hours.

“Ask Sanguini here if it isn’t quite — oh — where’s he got off to?”

Harry was quite pleased that Worple had to disappear to keep Sanguini from a pair of witches hanging around the musicians. He found that Slughorn, too, had vanished into the party, and he was grateful to spot a pile of thick dark hair slip between two wizards. He pulled Luna along.

“Hermione — Hermione!”

“Harry, there you are, thank goodness! Hi, Luna!”

They paused to grab goblets of mead from a tray, then tucked themselves into an empty corner of the room. Harry took a moment to actually take in Hermione’s appearance and was surprised to see her dress rumpled and her hair out of place — well, compared to the hours she had put into it for the Yule Ball. It appeared that it had once looked tight and smooth as it had at the ball, but now had started to fall apart.

“I’ve just escaped — I mean, I’ve just left Cormac under the mistletoe.”

“Why in Merlin’s name did you bring him?” Harry nearly spilled his mead down the front of his robes as he punctuated his question with a more aggressive gesture than he had intended.

“I thought he’d annoy Ron the most,” Hermione said.

Harry, who disliked McLaggen about half as much as he disliked Draco Malfoy, found this a little rude to McLaggen.

“I debated for a while about Zacharias Smith, but I thought, on the whole —”

“You considered Smith?” Harry had to refrain from retching up his mead. He made the decision that he was no longer tolerating Ron and Hermione’s fight. As soon as the Christmas holiday was over, he was done keeping his mouth shut, and he was going to make sure that they both knew how wrong they were.

“Yes, I did, and I’m starting to wish I’d chosen him. McLaggen makes Grawp look like a gentleman — oh no, here he comes!” and she was gone, disappearing between a pair of witches laughing heartily at something Slughorn had just said.

McLaggen reached Harry and Luna a moment later. “Seen Hermione?” McLaggen asked.

“No, sorry,” Harry said. “Er — have you met Luna Lovegood?”

McLaggen shook Luna’s hand warily. “I didn’t realise you two were… friends.”

“Harry!” Slughorn’s voice boomed. “That’s where you got off to.” His tasseled hat was now sitting askew and his face glowed red, though his glass of mead was full. “I was just telling Severus here what a natural you are at Potions — oh, stop sulking Severus! — Some credit for Harry’s exceptional potion-making must go to you, of course, you taught him for five years!”

Harry felt strangely sympathetic towards Snape, who could not easily break free from Slughorn’s tight arm around his shoulder.

“Funny,” Snape said, “I never had the impression that I managed to teach Potter anything at all.”

Harry thought, given their dismal Occlumency lessons, he could quite agree with the statement that Snape was a terrible teacher.

“Then it’s natural ability!” Slughorn said. “You should have seen what he gave me, first lesson, Draught of Living Death — never had a student produce a finer on a first attempt. I don’t think even you, Severus —”

“Really?”

Harry focused on Slughorn, and refused to make eye contact with Snape. He did not need Snape uncovering the truth of why he had succeeded in Potions so suddenly. He had a feeling that Snape would not approve.

“Remind me what other subjects you’re taking, Harry?” asked Slughorn.

“Defense, Charms, Transfiguration, Herbology —”

“All the subjects required, in short, for an Auror,” said Snape. There was a sneer in his voice, but there was always a sneer in Snape’s voice, so Harry could not be certain whether or not it was personal.

In truth, he and Snape had hardly spoken this year. Nonverbal casting in Defense Against the Dark Arts meant that he never had to open his mouth, and so he did not. Snape, largely, had taken to ignoring Harry, which Harry had no problem with. They’d reached something of an impasse; Harry knew that Snape loved Lily, and Snape knew that Harry had, however foolishly, risked his life to save Snape from Voldemort. There was a debt beneath that loathing, and both were content to pretend that nothing existed between them.

“I don’t think you should be an Auror, Harry,” said Luna. “The Aurors are part of the Rotfang conspiracy, I thought everyone knew that. They’re working to bring down the Ministry of Magic from within using a combination of Dark Magic and gum disease.”

Harry choked on his mead as McLaggen and Slughorn gaped at Luna. Snape remained unperturbed, but perhaps he was familiar with Luna’s absurdities after four years as her professor.

“And who,” Slughorn asked, perhaps having had enough glasses of mead to be genuinely interested, “is at the head of this conspiracy?”

“Rufus Scrimgeour, of course. They’ve nearly won now that he’s become Minister for Magic. Did you know Scrimgeour is a vampire? He’s got very close connections with Regulus Black from the years they spent together in Transylvania.”

This got an eyebrow raise out of Snape. Harry would have loved to watch more of the Enchanting Eccentricities of Luna Lovegood Hour, but something much more interesting grabbed his attention. Argus Filch appeared, dragging in Draco Malfoy by the ear.

“Professor Slughorn,” Filch gasped, “I have discovered this boy lurking in an upstairs corridor. He claims to have been invited to your party and to have been delayed in setting out. Did you issue him with an invitation?”

Malfoy managed to wrench himself from the caretaker’s hold. “Alright, I wasn’t invited! I was trying to gate-crash, happy?”

“No, I am not!” Though Filch looked utterly pleased at the possibility of punishing a student. “You’re in trouble, you are! Didn’t the headmaster say that nighttime prowling’s out, unless you’ve got permission, didn’t he, eh?”

“That’s alright, Argus, that’s alright.” Slughorn did not look upset in the least. “It’s Christmas, and it’s not a crime to want to come to a party. Just this once, we’ll forget any punishment; you may stay, Draco.”

Malfoy did not look pleased to hear this, and Harry wondered just what Malfoy had been up to. Snape, too, looked displeased, which was his default expression, but it was different somehow. Whatever Harry saw on Snape’s face was brief. It vanished as Filch did, though Filch left with far more grumbling. Malfoy’s displeasure, too, had disappeared, and he was smiling and thanking Slughorn for his graciousness.

“It’s nothing, nothing,” Slughorn said. “I did know your grandfather, after all.”

“He always spoke very highly of you, sir,” said Malfoy. “Said you were the best potion-maker he’d ever known.”

Though the displeasure had vanished, and Malfoy was his usual self again, full of flattery for those in power, Harry noticed that Malfoy was, incredibly, paler than usual. Shadows rimmed his eyes, and his features were, strangely, not unlike Sanguini’s, and not unlike Regulus Black’s, when he was fresh from Azkaban. He doubted Malfoy had recently received a vampire bite, and he was fairly certain that Malfoy had not run into any dementors at Hogwarts. He wondered what it was that had changed Malfoy so thoroughly.

“I’d like a word with you, Draco,” said Snape.

“Oh, now, Severus,” Slughorn paused to hiccough, “it’s Christmas. Don’t be too hard —”

“I’m his Head of House, and I shall decide how hard, or otherwise, to be,” said Snape. “Follow me, Draco.”

Harry had a brief moment of trepidation. He did not want to leave Luna with McLaggen, but he decided Luna was quite capable of looking after herself. He was the one who had taught her defensive spells, after all.

“Er — I’ll be right back. Bathroom.”

“Alright,” Luna said. She appeared entirely unbothered as she continued to tell McLaggen exactly how deep the Rotfang conspiracy went.

As soon as Harry had slipped out through the doors of the party, he pulled the Invisibility Cloak over himself and unfolded the Marauder’s Map. He searched the corridor and adjacent classrooms for Draco Malfoy and Severus Snape. He finally found them behind the door at the very end of the corridor. He knew it would be impossible to open the door without disturbing them, so he crouched at the keyhole, careful that the cloak covered his feet.

“... what a risk it was! And utterly foolish. How did you expect it to even get into the castle? Filch may be an idiot, but even he wouldn’t let an unmarked package enter the castle without a thorough inspection. You must understand that you cannot afford mistakes, Draco, because if you are expelled —”

“I didn’t have anything to do with it, alright?”

“I hope you are telling the truth, because it was both clumsy and foolish. Already you are suspected of having a hand in it.”

“Who suspects me? For the last time, I didn’t do it, okay? That Bell girl must’ve had an enemy no one knows about — don’t look at me like that! I know what you’re doing. I’m not stupid — but it won’t work. I can stop you!”

There was a lull in the conversation and Harry wondered what Snape had done, but he got his answer quickly.

“Ah… Your Aunt Bellatrix has been teaching you Occlumency. I see. What thoughts are you trying to conceal from your master, Draco?”

“I’m not trying to conceal anything from him, I just don’t want you butting in!”

Draco had always shown respect towards Snape. Snape was his favourite professor, his Head of House, and Snape had always shown him favour in return. This contempt was entirely new.

“So that is why you have been avoiding me this term? You realise that, had anybody else failed to come to my office when I had told them repeatedly to be there, Draco —”

“So put me in detention! Report me to Dumbledore!”

There was another long pause.

“You know perfectly well that I do not wish to do either of those things. Listen to me, Draco, I am trying to help you. I swore to your mother I would protect you. I made the Unbreakable Vow, Draco —”

“Looks like you’ll have to break it then, because I don’t want your protection. It’s my job. He gave it to me, and I’m doing it. I’ve got a plan and it’s going to work. It’s just taking a bit longer than I thought it would!”

“And what is your plan?”

“It’s none of your business!”

“I have no interest in credit, Draco, I am only trying to assist you —”

“I don’t believe you! I know what you are — I know why he asked me to do this and not you. Filthy Mudblood-lover.”

For a moment, Harry forgot to breathe.

“Do you doubt my loyalty, Draco?”

“Why shouldn’t I?! You betrayed him for Potter’s Mudblood-mother —”

“Keep your voice down!” Snape hissed, for Draco had begun to shout. “The Dark Lord is satisfied that I have proven myself. I was the one who told him the importance of the prophecy. I was the one who gave him the plan that lured Potter to the Ministry, was I not? I have put myself in a position that is as valuable to him as yours, and I have put myself at great risk to do so. You are putting yourself at risk unnecessarily. I am here to assist you Draco. I understand that your father’s capture and imprisonment has upset you, but —”

Harry heard Draco’s footsteps and only just managed to scramble away from the door as Draco flung it open and hurried out of the office, past the party, and down the stairs.

Harry stayed perfectly still, crouched in the centre of the corridor, and watched Snape exit the classroom. He appeared perfectly unperturbed, which Harry thought unfair, considering how fast his own heart was racing.

[charliejrogers]

Bad Education (Or, Breaking Bad, except Walt is the superintendent and doesn’t know chemistry)

During my senior year at the College of the Holy Cross, the administration was absolutely ecstatic. USA Today had just come out with a new ranking of Catholic colleges in the country. We were named number two. Two! No one in the world has ever been this happy to be in second place since the Pepsi execs realized how much money they would make from their product’s prominent placement in Alexander Payne’s Election which wanted to mock its second-place status.

Yet this exuberance at being almost the best lies at the heart of Cory Finley’s Bad Education. The film tells the true story of an elite Long Island public school in 2002 that has just been named the fourth best public school in the country. The community couldn’t be more ecstatic. The film opens with the disembodied voice of a school board member addressing the community as they celebrate their recent ascent in the rankings. An especially enthusiastic introduction is given for the superintendent, Dr. Frank Tassone (Hugh Jackman), the man felt responsible for its rise. The words of his introduction are juxtaposed against shots of an empty football stadium, empty hallways, empty classrooms. This is not your typical high school, nor your typical high school movie; our hero won’t be found on the field or in the classroom. Instead, the next shot is of Dr. Tassone preparing his appearance in the bathroom like a star doing fixing his make-up check before the big show. The camera then follows closely behind Tassone as he approaches, as if capturing a prize fighter’s approach to the ring. He is greeted with thunderous applause, but the camera pauses, noticeably on a banner behind him reading “Ranked #4,” as if to say, “What’s the big deal? You’re only number 4.”

The big deal, as often in life, is money. Being #4 is enough to bring the school and its students money and attention: success. The film, occasionally intercutting images of gorgeous Long Island mansions, makes painfully clear that the strength of a town’s public schools can make or break the town’s economic success. And for the school board members, many of whom are involved real estate, they have never seen such high property values (or profits) since Tassone took charge of things. Nor have the students matriculated into nearly as many Ivy League schools before, with a letter of recommendation from Tassone seemingly bringing assured acceptance. Add to this that Tassone with his selfless and community-oriented focus holds the rare distinction of being beloved by all teachers and staff  and there is no one who could think to say a bad word about him.

And for good reason. Tassone walks the walk. He spends his nights studying teachers’ names, their classes, their hobbies like one of his students studying vocabulary terms. While at an education conference in Vegas, he’s in the front row taking notes and chatting with presenters; the teachers who came with him, meanwhile, are playing craps in the casinos.

The celebratory portrait I’ve painted so far leaves little in the way of conflict, of plot. HBO has billed the film as a dark comedy/drama, but its more accurate to describe it as a tragedy in the vein of the ancient Greeks. Like its Classical forebears, Oedipus Rex, Agamemnon, etc., this might as well have been titled Dr. Tassone, as the film devotes itself to the gradual unraveling of its protagonist’s secrets (some salacious, some nefarious) while never compromising its commitment to portraying its protagonist’s humanity. It’s a deeply sympathetic film, one which I’m sure is controversial in the Long Island community where Tassone worked.

I hesitate to say more about the plot as it is best experienced blind, though to mirror a theme from the film, what is in the public record cannot really be secret. But again, like the best of Greek tragedies, the biggest of Tassone’s secrets are unraveled unwittingly by his own agency: his urging of a young sophomore girl to dig her teeth deeper into journalism. While the exact details of this side plot differ from the real-life story, it is forgivable because the dramatic irony here is so exceedingly satisfying.

If the film falters anywhere, it is that while presenting Tassone as a good-hearted and good-intentioned human capable of deep love and whimsy even while he can intimidate along with the best of Hollywood’s toughest gangsters, the film fails to extend this approach to the rest of the cast. Allison Janey has made a career playing world-weary women who don’t seem to have a bone of compassion in their bodies (her role as Tonya’s mother in I, Tonya stands out), and here as Tassone’s right-hand woman, Pam Gluckin, she shines. But she is not given the full rounded-character treatment Tassone gets, often feeling more like a walking personification of unthinking greed. The same flatness of character goes for Gluckin’s niece (Annaleigh Ashford) and school board president Bob Spicer (a disgustingly mustachioed Ray Romano). This would have been a larger problem if Jackman weren’t so compelling in the lead, but he is.

Because where the film truly shines is in its use of a personal tragedy to outline larger societal problems. The film by no means justifies the actions that contribute to Tassone’s eventual fall, but certainly considers them worth discussing. What is it that Americans, particularly privileged, wealthy White Americans, want from their school system? Cultivation of creativity and curiosity? Social skills? Problem-solving? Help with basic arithmetic? No. The film argues, and argues compellingly, that providing a good education is secondary providing success, regardless of a student’s actual abilities and work ethic. Anything less than the best outcomes is unacceptable, yet no more than public funding should be afforded to this most important endeavor. Under such pressure, who wouldn’t crack?

 ***/ (Three and a half stars out of four)

Capsule Review: The age old tale of school superintendent vs. school newspaper!

[douchebagbrainwaves]

UNDERSTANDING YOUR USERS IS PART OF WHAT HIGHER-LEVEL LANGUAGES, AND TWO ARE STILL UNIQUE TO LISP

I'm not criticizing Steve and Alexis. Good hackers insist on control. Overloading, for example, have been around 7-10x.1 Hard to say exactly, but wherever it is, but the fear of missing out. I couldn't talk to them. Over time, the default language, embodied in a succession of popular languages, has gradually evolved toward Lisp. There will of course come a point where there is just too much to keep in your head in order to conceive of the program, and so on. A complex macro may have to save many times its own length to be justified.

If you're not threatening, you're probably not doing anything new, except the names and places, in most news about things going wrong. Economically, this is a sign of an underlying lack of resourcefulness. So being cheap is almost interchangeable with iterating rapidly. And when you look at what they're doing on that computer, you'll find the most general truths. There are plenty of other areas that are just as valuable as positive ones. The most tempting format for stupid comments is the supposedly witty put-down, probably because put-downs are the easiest form of humor. Meanwhile, sensing a vacuum in the metaphysical speculation department, the people working on them discover a new kind of organization that combined the efforts of individuals without requiring them to be interchangeable. Within large organizations, the phrase used to describe a market as a degenerate case—as what you get by default when organization isn't possible. But this way of keeping them out is gentler and probably also more effective than overt barriers. But don't wait till you've burned through your last round of funding to start approaching them.

It was presumably many thousands of years between when people first started describing things as hot or cold and when someone asked what is heat? The most important way to not spend money is by not hiring people. And the project starts small because the idea is small at first; he just has some cool hack he wants to try out. Apple's competitors now know better. Is a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy. If you want ideas for startups, but it didn't help Thinking Machines or Xerox. But hackers can't watch themselves at work. As a little piece of debris, the rational thing for you to do is say one word to them, at least.

Curiously, however, the works they produced continued to attract new readers. It's true that a restaurant with mediocre food can sometimes attract customers through gimmicks. How tech-saturated Silicon Valley is where it is.2 Which usually means that you have to declare the type of every variable, and can't tell one programming language from another, and work well together.3 If you think you're 85% of the way into Lisp, they could probably do it. In art, mediums like embroidery and mosaic work well if you know beforehand what you want. And now Wall Street is collectively kicking itself.4 There is actually some data out there about that. Some may even deliberately stall, because they enjoy it. I didn't realize that when we were raising money. Like a parent saying to a child, I bet you can't clean up your whole room in ten minutes, a good manager can sometimes redefine a problem as a more interesting one.

It won't seem so preposterous in 10,000 years. It's not something you work despite.5 In such situations it's helpful to have working democracies and multiple sovereign countries. It always was cool. Unless their working day ends at the same time as mine, the meeting presumably interrupts theirs, but since they made the appointment it must be, because I read about it in the press all the time.6 Getting money from an investor than an employer. I've learned so much from working on it. The right thing to compare Lisp to is not 1950s hardware, but, say, 1970, I think professionalism was largely a restatement of the first. A better way to get one loaded into your head. We didn't just give canned presentations at trade shows. It wouldn't be a compliment in most organizations to call someone scrappy. Garbage-collection.

So startup culture may not merely be different in the way we do. If that's what's on the other side of the mountain is a nice gradual slope. Bill Gates knows this. Programs composed of expressions. You could conceivably lose half your brain and live. Sometimes when you return to it. If you're the sort of founders about whom we'd say they can take a nap on when they feel tired, instead of dying. This growth rate is a bit uglier. Great programmers are sometimes said to be indifferent to money.

Perhaps only the more thoughtful users care enough to submit and upvote links, so the marginal cost of one random new user approaches zero. If it seems like a daunting task to do philosophy, here's an encouraging thought. And the bigger you are, the less pressure they feel to act smart. It helped us to have Robert Morris, Peter Norvig, Lisa Randall, Emmett Shear, Sergei Tsarev, and Stephen Wolfram for reading drafts of this. The fourth advantage of ramen profitability is a trick for determining which points are the counterintuitive ones: they're the ones I have to keep the sense of being very short, and also did all the legal work of getting us set up as a company with a valuation any lower. If companies want hackers to be productive, they should look at what they do there than how much they get paid for it. Users don't switch from Explorer to Firefox because they want to invest two years in something that is industry best practice actually gets you is not the long but mistaken argument, but the most I've ever been able to write a short comment that's distinguished for the amount of wealth that can be created. For example, the corporate site that says the company makes enterprise content management solutions for business that enable organizations to unify people, content and processes to minimize business risk, accelerate time-to-value and sustain lower total cost of ownership.7 And so while you needed expressions for math to work, and if you get demoralized, don't give up on your dreams.8 Try making your customer service not merely good, but surprisingly good. One of the standard pieces of advice in fiction writing is show, don't tell.

Notes

The CPU weighed 3150 pounds, and b the second wave extends applications across the web have sucked—A Spam Classification Organization Program. Monk, Ray, Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Civil Service Examinations of Imperial China, during the war had been with their company for more of the crown, and that modern corporate executives were, we should remember this when he received an invitation to travel aboard the HMS Beagle as a collection itself.

It would have a precise measure of the court. The kind of bug to find out why investors who say no for introductions to other knowledge. Many people have told me they do on the way and run the programs on the software business, and in a way to predict precisely what would our competitors hate most? Maybe markets will eventually get comfortable with potential acquirers.

Plus ca change. Philosophy is like math's ne'er-do-well brother. MSFT, having sold all my shares earlier this year.

Common Lisp for, but I took so long. Digg is notorious for its shares will inevitably be something you need to learn to acknowledge as well as a result a lot better to get kids into better colleges, I mean efforts to manipulate them. The meanings of these people. You can get it, is that the Internet into situations where a great reputation and they're clearly working fast to get the money, but a big change from what it would be a good problem to have been fooled by the government to take a long thread are rarely seen, when Subject foo degenerates to just foo, what that means is we hope visited mostly by people like them—people who need the money.

Spices are also exempt. There are still, has one booked for them.

4%, and made more that year from stock options than any other company has ever been. Unfortunately the constraint probably has to split hairs that fine about whether a suit would violate the patent pledge, it's because of the company will either be a founder; and with that additional constraint, you usually have to pass so slowly for them, and that modern corporate executives were, they'd be proportionately more effective, leaving the area around city hall a bleak wasteland, but the route to that mystery is that the government had little effect on what you call the market.

In technology, so they had that we should work like casual conversation.

A rolling close usually prevents this. We consciously optimize for this essay talks about the other hand, launching something small and use whatever advantages that brings. That makes some rich people move, and mostly in Perl, and the valuation of the most recent version of this desirable company, but I took so long to send them the final whistle, the apparent misdeeds of corp dev guys should be deprived of their time and became the twin centers from which they don't yet have any of the word that means having type II startups won't get you type I. Good and bad luck.

[ryankavanaugh48-blog]

The "Experts" Are Getting Crypto All Wrong

Bitcoin peaked about a month ago, on December 17, at a high of nearly $20,000. As I write, the cryptocurrency is under $11,000... a loss of about 45%. That's more than $150 billion in lost market cap.

Cue much hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth in the crypto-commentariat. It's neck-and-neck, but I think the "I-told-you-so" crowd has the edge over the "excuse-makers."

Here's the thing: Unless you just lost your shirt on bitcoin, this doesn't matter at all. And chances are, the "experts" you may see in the press aren't telling you why.

In fact, bitcoin's crash is wonderful... because it means we can all just stop thinking about cryptocurrencies altogether.

The Death of Bitcoin...

In a year or so, people won't be talking about bitcoin in the line at the grocery store or on the bus, as they are now. Here's why.

Bitcoin is the product of justified frustration. Its designer explicitly said the cryptocurrency was a reaction to government abuse of fiat currencies like the dollar or euro. It was supposed to provide an independent, peer-to-peer payment system based on a virtual currency that couldn't be debased, since there was a finite number of them.

That dream has long since been jettisoned in favor of raw speculation. Ironically, most people care about bitcoin because it seems like an easy way to get more fiat currency! They don't own it because they want to buy pizzas or gas with it.

Besides being a terrible way to transact electronically - it's agonizingly slow - bitcoin's success as a speculative play has made it useless as a currency. Why would anyone spend it if it's appreciating so fast? Who would accept one when it's depreciating rapidly?

Bitcoin is also a major source of pollution. It takes 351 kilowatt-hours of electricity just to process one transaction - which also releases 172 kilograms of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. That's enough to power one U.S. household for a year. The energy consumed by all bitcoin mining to date could power almost 4 million U.S. households for a year.

Paradoxically, bitcoin's success as an old-fashioned speculative play - not its envisaged libertarian uses - has attracted government crackdown.

China, South Korea, Germany, Switzerland and France have implemented, or are considering, bans or limitations on bitcoin trading. Several intergovernmental organizations have called for concerted action to rein in the obvious bubble. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which once seemed likely to approve bitcoin-based financial derivatives, now seems hesitant.

And according to Investing.com: "The European Union is implementing stricter rules to prevent money laundering and terrorism financing on virtual currency platforms. It's also looking into limits on cryptocurrency trading."

We may see a functional, widely accepted cryptocurrency someday, but it won't be bitcoin.

... But a Boost for Crypto Assets

Good. Getting over bitcoin allows us to see where the real value of crypto assets lies. Here's how.

To use the New York subway system, you need tokens. You can't use them to buy anything else... although you could sell them to someone who wanted to use the subway more than you.

In fact, if subway tokens were in limited supply, a lively market for them might spring up. They might even trade for a lot more than they originally cost. It all depends on how much people want to use the subway.

That, in a nutshell, is the scenario for the most promising "cryptocurrencies" other than bitcoin. They're not money, they're tokens - "crypto-tokens," if you will. They aren't used as general currency. They are only good within the platform for which they were designed.

If those platforms deliver valuable services, people will want those crypto-tokens, and that will determine their price. In other words, crypto-tokens will have value to the extent that people value the things you can get for them from their associated platform.

That will make them real assets, with intrinsic value - because they can be used to obtain something that people value. That means you can reliably expect a stream of revenue or services from owning such crypto-tokens. Critically, you can measure that stream of future returns against the price of the crypto-token, just as we do when we calculate the price/earnings ratio (P/E) of a stock.

Bitcoin, by contrast, has no intrinsic value. It only has a price - the price set by supply and demand. It can't produce future streams of revenue, and you can't measure anything like a P/E ratio for it.

One day it will be worthless because it doesn't get you anything real.

Ether and Other Crypto Assets Are the Future

The crypto-token ether sure seems like a currency. It's traded on cryptocurrency exchanges under the code ETH. Its symbol is the Greek uppercase Xi character. It's mined in a similar (but less energy-intensive) process to bitcoin.

But ether isn't a currency. Its designers describe it as "a fuel for operating the distributed application platform Ethereum. It is a form of payment made by the clients of the platform to the machines executing the requested operations."

Ether tokens get you access to one of the world's most sophisticated distributed computational networks. It's so promising that big companies are falling all over each other to develop practical, real-world uses for it.

Because most people who trade it don't really understand or care about its true purpose, the price of ether has bubbled and frothed like bitcoin in recent weeks.

But eventually, ether will revert to a stable price based on the demand for the computational services it can "buy" for people. That price will represent real value that can be priced into the future. There'll be a futures market for it, and exchange-traded funds (ETFs), because everyone will have a way to assess its underlying value over time. Just as we do with stocks.

What will that value be? I have no idea. But I know it will be a lot more than bitcoin.

My advice: Get rid of your bitcoin, and buy ether at the next dip.

Ted Bauman joined The Sovereign Investor Daily in 2013. As an expat who lived in South Africa for 25 years, Ted specializes in asset protection and international migration. Read more of what he has to say about offshore living here ryan kavanaugh.

[oscopelabs]

3D, Part 2: How 3D Peaked At Its Valley by Vadim Rizov

I didn’t expect to spend Thanksgiving Weekend 2018 watching ten 3D movies: marathon viewing is not my favorite experience in general, and I haven’t spent years longing to see, say, Friday the 13th Part III, in 35mm. But a friend was visiting, from Toronto, to take advantage of this opportunity, an impressive level of dedication that seemed like something to emulate, and it’s not like I had anything better to do, so I tagged along. Said friend, Blake Williams, is an experimental filmmaker and 3D expert, a subject to which he’s devoted years of graduate research and the bulk of his movies (see Prototype if it comes to a city near you!); if I was going to choose the arbitrary age of 32 to finally take 3D seriously, I couldn’t have a better Virgil to explain what I was seeing on a technical level. My thanks to him (for getting me out there) and to the Quad Cinema for being my holiday weekend host; it was probably the best possible use of my time.

The 10-movie slate was an abridged encore presentation of this 19-film program, which I now feel like a dink for missing. What’s interesting in both is the curatorial emphasis on films from 3D’s second, theoretically most disreputable wave—‘80s movies with little to zero critical respect or profile. Noel Murray considered a good chunk of these on this site a few years ago, watching the films flat at home, noting that when viewed this way, “the plane-breaking seems all the more superfluous. (It’s also easy to spot when these moments are about to happen, because the overall image gets murkier and blurrier.)” This presumes that if you can perceive the moments where a 3D film expands its depth of field for a comin’-at-ya moment and mentally reconstruct what that would look like, that’s basically the same experience as actually seeing these effects.

Blake’s argument, which I wrestled with all weekend, is that these movies do indeed often look terrible in 2D, but 3D literally makes them better. As it turns out, this is true surprisingly often. Granted, all concerned have to know what they’re doing, otherwise the results will still be indifferent: it turns out that Friday the 13th Part III sucks no matter how you watch it, and 3D’s not a complete cure-all. This was also demonstrated by my first movie, 1995’s barely released Run For Cover, the kind of grade-Z library filler you’d expect to see sometime around 2 am on a syndicated channel. This is, ostensibly, a thriller, in which a TV news cameraman foils a terrorist plot against NYC. It features a lot of talking, scenes of Bondian villains eating Chinese takeout while plotting and/or torturing our ostensible hero, some running (non-Tom Cruise speed levels), and one The Room-caliber sex scene. Anyone who’s spent too much time mindlessly staring at the least promising option on TV has seen many movies like these. The 3D helps a little: an underdressed TV station set takes on heightened diorama qualities, making it interesting to contemplate as an inadvertent installation—the archetypal TV command room, with the bare minimum necessary signifiers in place and zero detail otherwise—rather than simply a bare-bones set. But often the camera is placed nowhere in particular, and the resulting images are negligible; in the absence of dramatic conviction or technical skill, what’s left is never close enough to camp to come back out the other side as inadvertently worthwhile. I’m glad I saw it for the sheer novelty of cameos from Ed Koch, Al Sharpton and Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa—all doing their usual talking points, but in 3D! But it’s the kind of film that’s more fun to tell people about than actually watch.

But infamous punchlines Jaws 3-D and Amityville 3-D have their virtues when viewed in 3D. The former, especially, seems to be the default punching bag whenever someone wants to make the case that 3D has, and always will be, nothing but a limited gimmick upselling worthless movies. It was poorly reviewed when it came out, but the public dug it enough to make it, domestically, the 15th highest-grossing film of 1983 (between Never Say Never Again and Scarface) and justify Jaws: The Revenge. Of course I was skeptical; why wouldn’t I be? But I was sucked in by the opening credits, in which the familiar handheld-underwater-cam-as-shark POV gave way to a severed arm floating before a green “ocean.” Maybe flat it looks simply ludicrous, but the image has a compellingly Lynchian quality, as if the limb were detached from one of Twin Peaks: The Return’s more disgusting corpses, its artifice heightened and literally foregrounded, the equally artificial background setting it into greater relief.

The film’s prominent SeaWorld product placement is, theoretically, ill-advised, especially in the post-Blackfish era; in practice, it’s extremely productive. The opening stretches have a lot of water-skiing; in deep 3D, the water-skiers serve as lines tracing depth towards and away from the camera over a body of water whose horizon line stretches back infinitely, producing a greater awareness of space. It reminded me of the early days of the short-lived super-widescreen format Cinerama, as described by John Belton in his academic history book Widescreen Cinema (recommended). The very first film in the format, This is Cinerama, was a travelogue whose stops included Cypress Gardens, Florida’s first commercial tourist theme park (the site is now a Legoland), which has very similar images of waterskiiers. Cinerama was, per the publicist copy Belton quotes from the period, about an experience, not a story: “Plot is replaced by audience envelopment […] the medium forces you to concentrate on something bigger than people, for it has a range of vision and sound that no other medium offers.” Cinerama promised to immerse viewers, as literalized in this delightful publicity image; Belton argues that “unlike 3-D and CinemaScope, which stressed the dramatic content of their story material and the radical new means of technology employed in production, Cinerama used a saturation advertising campaign in the newspapers and on radio to promote the ‘excitement aspects’ of the new medium.” There’s a connection here with the earliest days of silent cinema, short snippets (“actualities”) of reality, before it was decided that medium’s primary purpose was to tell a story. It didn’t have to be like that; in those opening stretches, Jaws 3-D’s lackadaisical narrative, which might play inertly on TV, recalls the 1890s, when shots of bodies of water were popular subjects. This is something I learned from a recent presentation by silent film scholar Bryony Dixon, and her reasoning makes sense. The way water moves is inherently hypnotic, and for early audiences assimilating their very first moving images, water imagery was a favorite subject. It’s only with a few years under its belt that film started making its drift towards narrative as default; inadvertently or not, Jaws 3-D is very pure in its initial presentation of water as a spectacular, non-narrative event.

If this seems like a lot of cultural and historical weight to bring to bear upon Jaws 3-D, note that it wasn’t even my favorite of the more-scorned offerings I saw that weekend, merely one that makes it easiest for me to articulate what I found compelling about the 3D immersion experience. I haven’t described the plot of Jaws 3-D at all, which is indeed perfunctory (though it was nice to learn where Deep Blue Sea cribbed a bunch of its production design from). I won’t try to rehabilitate Amityville 3-D at similar length: set aside the moronic ending and Tony Roberts’ leading turn as one of cinema’s most annoyingly waspish, unearnedly whiny divorcees, and what’s left is a surprisingly melancholy movie about the frustrations, and constant necessary repairs, of home ownership. There’s very little music and a surprising amount of silence. The most effective moment is simply Roberts going upstairs to the bathroom, where steam is hissing out for no apparent reason and he has to fix the plumbing. The camera’s planted in the hallway, not moving for any kind of emphasis as the back wall moves closer to Roberts; it doesn’t kill him and nothing comes of it, it’s just another problem to deal with (the walls, as it were, are settling), made more effective by awareness of how a space whose rules and boundaries seemed fixed is being altered, pushing air at you.

Watching a bunch of these in sequence, some clear lessons emerge: if you want to generate compelling depth by default, find an alleyway and block off the other half of the frame with a wall to present two different depths, or force protagonists to crawl through ducts or tubes. This is a good chunk of Silent Madness, a reasonably effective slasher film that, within the confines of its cheap sets and functional plotting, keeps the eye moving. It’s an unlikely candidate for a deep-dive New York Times Magazine article from the time period, which is well worth reading in full. It’s mostly about B-movies and the actresses trying to make their way up through them, though it does have this money quote from director Simon Nuchtern about why, for Bs, it’s not worth paying more for a good lead actress: “If I had 10,000 extra dollars, I’d put it into lights. Not one person is going to say, ‘Go see that movie because Lynn Redgrave is in it.’ But if we don’t have enough lights and that 3-D doesn’t pop right out at you, people are going to say, ‘Don’t see that movie because the 3-D stinks.’” Meanwhile, nobody appears to have been thinking that hard while making Friday the 13th: Part III, which contains precisely one striking image: a pan, street morning, as future teen lambs-to-the-slaughter exit their van and walk over to a friend’s house. A lens flare hits frame left, making what’s behind it briefly impossible to see: this portion of the frame is now sealed off under impermeable 2D, in contrast to the rest of the frame’s now far-more-tangible depth. The remainder of the movie makes it easy to imagine watching it on TV and clocking every obvious, poorly framed and blocked 3D effect, from spears being thrown at the camera to the inevitable yo-yo descending at the lens. (This is my least favorite 3D effect because it’s just too obvious and counterproductively makes me think of the Smothers Brothers.)

Friday the 13th was the biggest slog of the 3D weekend, and the one most clearly emulating 1981’s Comin’ at Ya! I am not going to argue for that movie, either, which is generally credited with kicking off the second 3D craze; it’s a sludgy spaghetti western that delivers exactly as its title promises, using a limited number of effects repeatedly before showing them all again in a cut-together montage at the end, lest you missed one in its first iteration. It’s exhausting and oddly joyless, but was successful enough to generate a follow-up from the same creative team. Star Tony Anthony and director Ferdinando Baldi (both veterans of second-tier spaghetti westerns) re-teamed for 1983’s Treasure of the Four Crowns, the movie which (two screenings in) rewired my brain a little and convinced me I should hang around all weekend. This is not a well-respected film, then or now: judging by IMDb user comments, most people who remember seeing it recall it playing endlessly on HBO in the ‘80s, where it did not impress them unless they were very young (and even then, perhaps not). Janet Maslin admitted to walking out on it in her review; then again, she did the same with Dawn of the Dead, and everyone loves that.

An unabashed Indiana Jones copy, Treasure begins strong with a lengthy opening sequence of tomb raider J.T. Striker (Anthony) dropping into a cave, where he’s promptly confronted not only with a bunch of traps but, for a long stretch, a small menagerie’s worth of owls, dogs, and other wildlife. There are a lot of animals, and why not? They’re fun to look at, and having them trotted out, one after another, is another link back to silent cinema; besides water, babies and animals were also popular subjects. The whole sequence ends with Striker running away from the castle above the cave, artifact retrieved, in slow-motion as Ennio Morricone’s score blares. There is, inevitably and nonsensically, a fireball that consumes the set; it unfolds luxuriously in detailed depth, the camera placed on a grassy knoll that gives us a nice angle to contemplate it looking upwards, a nearly abstract testament to the pleasures of gasoline-fueled imagery. Shortly thereafter, Striker is in some European city to sell his wares, and in every shot the camera is placed for maximum depth: in front of a small city park’s mini-waterfall, views of streets boxed in by sidewalks that narrow towards each other, each position calibrated to create a spectacular travelogue out of what’s a fairly mundane location. There’s an expository sequence where Striker and friends drop into a diner to ask about the whereabouts of another member of the crew they need to round up. Here, with the camera on one side of a bar encircling a center counter, there are something like six layers of cleanly articulated space, starting with a plant’s leaves right in front of the lens on the side, proceeding to the counter, center area, back counter, back tables and walls of the establishment. Again, the location is mundane; seeing it filleted in space so neatly is what makes it special.

The climax finally convinced me I was watching forgotten greatness. This is an elaborate heist sequence in which, of course, the floor cannot be touched, necessitating that the team perform all kinds of rappelling foolishness. At this point I thought, “the only way I could respect this movie more is if it spent 10 minutes watching them get from one side of the room to another in real time.” First, the team has to gear up, which basically means untangling a bunch of ropes—clearly not the most exciting activity. The camera is looking up, placed below a team member as they uncoil and then drop a rope towards the lens. This is a better-framed variant of the comin’-at-ya principle, but what made it exciting to me was the leisurely way it was done: no more whizzing spears, but a moment of procedural mundanity as exciting as any ostensible danger. Basic narrative film grammar is being upended here: if a rope being dropped is just as exciting as a big, fake rip-off boulder chasing our hero down the cave, then all the rules about what constitutes narrative are off—narrative and non-narrative elements have the exact same weight, and even the most mundane, A-to-B connective shot is a spectacular event.

This isn’t how narrative cinema is supposed to work, and certainly not what James Cameron’s conception of good 3D proposed. The movie keeps going, building to a bizarrely grim climax involving a lot of face-melting, scored by Morricone’s oddly beatific score, which seems serenely indifferent to the grotesqueness of the images it’s accompanying. (This is a recurring trait in the composer’s ‘80s work; the score for White Dog often seems to bear no relation to the footage it’s accompanying.) That would make the movie oneiric and weirdly compelling even on a flat TV, but everything preceding convinced me: 3D can be great because it’s 3D, not because it serves a story. I’ve spent the last decade getting more angry about the format than anything, but that was a misunderstanding. Treasure of the Four Crowns is, yes, probably very unexceptional seen flat; seen in all three dimensions, it’s a demonstration of how 3D can turn banal connective tissue and routine coverage into an event. The spectacle of 3D might never have been its potential to make elaborate CG landscapes more immersive, something I still haven’t personally been convinced of; as those 19 non-CG shots in Avatar showed (undermining Cameron’s own argument!), 3D’s renderings of the real, material world and objects have yet to be fully explored. 3D’s ability to link film back to its earliest days is refreshing, in the way that any rediscovery of forgotten parts of film language can be, while also encouraging thought about all the things narrative visual language hasn’t yet explored, as if 3D could take us forwards and backwards simultaneously. In any case, I’m now won over—ten years after Avatar, but better late than never.

[betsynagler]

I steal pens.

I steal pens.

I'm not entirely sure when I started doing it, but I'm pretty sure it happened at a hotel. Of course, the pens in hotels are kind of meant to be taken, so it’s not really “stealing,” they're free advertising because they have the name of the hotel on them. Plus, they're never very good pens to begin with, they are always your most basic ballpoint, plus they obviously come from some place that uses the cheapest plastic and smallest inkwells, because, again, they're not so much meant to be writing implements as tiny, disposable billboards. So I have never really felt that bad about taking them home and using them as long as they last, which, considering how seldom I need to hand-write anything these days, can be quite a while. But this is why, if you ever meet me, and you ask to borrow a pen, there’s an excellent chance you’ll get one from a Hampton Inn.

But I will occasionally also take pens from other places. Like if I'm at work on a commercial, and they have a box of pens there for us to fill out our timecards, and I recently lost the one I keep in my bag, maybe I just won’t…give this one back. Why does this seem okay to me? Well, they have a whole box, I know they’re not going to need them all. I also know that the people out of whose pocket the pen money has come are not the people I’m working with on the day, nearly all of whom are freelancers of one sort or another — so basically, nobody I meet on job is going to be hurt if I take the pen. The only entity you could say is being “hurt” is the production company that hired us all for that job, but they can generally afford to lose a 50¢, or 30¢, or 8¢ pen, depending how large the bulk office supply box they bought is — and it’s always a bulk office supply box, which also shows the scale of spending on what we do, that they will just buy a whole box of pens for one two-day job. Money is not really an object for these companies the way it is for me, because even when they plead poverty and beg us to work for lower rates and nickel-and-dime us on rentals and understaff the camera department, they nearly always can somehow afford to buy rafts of Starbucks coffees and gourmet donuts for the clients. On top of that, I see the people who do own these companies on set sometimes, when they show up for half an hour to shake hands and then drive off in their Porsches or Lexi (yes, they’re always midlife-crisis-aged men), and there definitely seems to be something disproportionate there in terms of how much they make and how much my crew colleagues and I make, and who’s doing all the work. So in some small way, I feel like I’m redressing a huge imbalance between me and the 1%; I’m not taking pens from people, I’m taking them from The Man. And when I take pens from other places — I’m at a store and someone asks me to do a survey and I need a pen so I just don’t give it back, or I find one someone dropped on set and I don’t try to figure out who dropped it and return it, I just pocket the thing — I have a similar list of justifications for why it’s okay to just take them. And if those don’t work, I can always tell myself, It’s just a pen.

When I was younger, and I had less stuff, I took more stuff, to the point that some might say it crossed a line into actual theft. In my 20s, when I worked in an office part-time, I would take home office supplies, not just pens but Post-It notes, sometimes even entire legal pads. Again, I knew the people who owned these companies, and they had cars with drivers and private bathrooms with phones built in their offices (something in the pre-cell phone era that said you thought your time was so valuable you couldn’t even stop working to take a shit), so I was pretty sure they wouldn’t care about me taking this stuff, and if they were the kind of stingy assholes who would, they deserved to lose office supplies. Plus, everyone else who worked there did it, as has everyone else who’s ever worked in an office. And this last was also the reasoning behind why I felt it was okay to take glasses from bars as “souvenirs,” especially when my roommates and I needed glasses: it was just something that we all did back then, when we weren’t enough money to buy the things we needed. Our other “stemware” was cups that came free with drinks at sports or holiday events, and our furniture was stuff we found on the street and milk crates covered in fabric, as if that made them look less like milk crates. Once you’re taking things from somewhere that’s not your place of work, though, you can't pretend they're some sort of salary bonus as justification. Like, why did we consider it okay to steal from service establishments, but not okay to shoplift the same items from stores? Was it a calculation that lost or broken glasses are just a cost of doing business at a bar? Was it just because we thought we wouldn't get caught, or because if we did, we thought they’d let us off the hook because we were young women drunk on their alcohol? And was it just the souvenir factor that made it more likely that I’d take something from a bar in another state or country than at home, or was it because I was less likely to identify with the owners of a place so far away that I knew I’d probably never visit again, even though they were still human beings for whom that business was their livelihood? Basically, did we just think it was okay to do these things because we thought we could get away with it and not feel guilty?

I guess what I’m wondering is, how do we decide what’s wrong, and who we think it’s okay to hurt when we do it? And I believe the answer, unfortunate as it is, is that so much of this stuff is social. I stole what I stole when I was younger because other people did the same thing, and I took their justifications as my own (possibly adding on a few for good measure because I think too much). Now, when I take pens, there’s some part of my brain that considers not just how taking the pens will affect the party from whom I’m taking them, but how other people would react to it. On some level, knowing that I can sit here and tell you that I sometimes take pens that don’t belong to me, and that you probably won’t condemn or even think less of me for it, makes it okay for me to keep doing it. Is my conscience that flexible? Apparently so, and in case you haven’t noticed, yours probably is too. Humans are rationalization machines. Even if someone’s religion or spirituality or ethical code makes them “adhere” to some inflexible collection of words they believe someone (like God or the founding fathers or a group of likeminded pirates) gave them, they still seem to find the means to be extremely interpretive of those words when it comes to their own actions — perhaps even more than the rest of us. Because once it becomes about obeying words rather than policing one’s own actions through truly considering for yourself what’s right and wrong, then it’s just a question of creatively manipulating the words, or overwriting them with other words from the same source, or just deciding that the fact your group has the words makes you better than everyone else, and therefore justified in doing whatever the hell you want. Which is called “exceptionalism,” and also, “hypocrisy.”

Often, what you think is good for you is going to hurt someone else, so at some point we all have to consider the line between our own personal priorities and theirs. In the United States, where we often prize individual liberty higher than anything — sometimes, indeed, in a very inflexible code type way (I’m looking at you conservative bloc of Supreme Court justices) — there are many instances where the “them” we think we’re more important than is our community, or country, or basically the rest of world, and that calculation that can lead to some pretty wackadoo results. Somehow, many Americans seem to think someone's individual right to own an AR-15 outweighs the right of everyone else not to be murdered with one. Others seem to think it's more important that individuals get to choose not to vaccinate their kids rather than ensuring dangerous diseases don't spread to everyone else’s kids. And overall, it seems like we don't see it as the responsibility of American society to reform people who commit crimes, or fix the problems that led to those crimes, for our collective betterment, instead choosing to place that responsibility on the shoulders of one person — as if they exist in a vacuum. Is America greater because of school shootings, measles outbreaks, and mass incarceration? Because I would say those are among the defining characteristics of our culture right now.

And if anything, it feels like the line is moving in the wrong direction. Having a president who can be counted upon to always put his needs and wants above everyone else’s is frightening, because his lack of giving a shit about anyone else and the lack of giving a shit of everyone in government who follows his lead has devastating consequences for policy. Add to that the social animal bit, so that their behavior and language sets the example for huge swaths of this country and the world about what is considered okay to do to other people, and the ramifications become even more horrifying. I see it so often in what their supporters say on Facebook and Twitter — matching each other so exactly it’s like one voice bouncing straight out of the Fox News echo chamber — that what Trump says isn’t nice but it’s honest; that what he’s doing is helping “America”; that we need to put “us” first and stop caring about “them.” But once you start to build the list of who the Right seem to consider a “them” that it’s okay to hurt for your own sake -- immigrants, muslims, prisoners, addicts, poor people, people of color, LGBTQ folks, women who want control of their bodies, Jews, “libtards” — you might start to realize how many of “us” are included in their “them,” because basically everyone’s “them” is somebody else’s “us.” I guess the question is, at what point does “us” just basically mean “me”? And what kind of a sad, selfish fucking person do you have to be to think that’s the way you want to live?

Look, I’m not perfect. I steal pens. If there’s a free seat on the subway, I’m going to go for it as long as I don’t have to push an elderly person or a child out of the way — I mean come on, caring about the world doesn’t mean I stop being a New Yorker! But I try to help people who are lost, I always tip at least 20%, and I don’t cut into the exit lane line off the BQE. I actually used to do that, until I realized I was being an asshole, and so I stopped — because even if we are great at justifying the bad things we do, doesn’t mean we have to keep doing them. We can do better. In the past couple of years, I’ve donated more money and time to good causes, made videos and podcasts to promote change or get people to think, and I really try to help and listen whenever I can, because I know that it’s more necessary. If the world is getting more selfish, then those of us who want to make it better have to work harder to be less so. I’m not a saint, or a buddhist, or even a vegan, but I pay attention to where I draw my lines. And I find it hard not to wonder how many people in this country right now simply keep telling themselves, It’s just a pen.

[singingwordwright]

Trying to break the cancellation issue down: Week 2

Okay, so tonight I posted an entirely-too-long tweet thread on this issue, in which I recapped a lot of what I laid out in my post last week, as well some things I mentioned in response to an ask yesterday, and also new questions, information, and supposition. I thought I would try to lay it out here in a slightly more coherent issue.

First, however, I’m going to put it behind a cut. Because then if I have to edit any of this information, all the reblogs will link to the edited version instead of reblogging the incorrect/out-of-date version. Then I won’t have to make any future new posts on this subject.

Please keep in mind that this is all educated guessing. None of us know what’s really going on.

To recap what I laid out last week:

@freeform doesn’t own Shadowhunters. Freeform merely “leases” the domestic distribution rights from Constantin Film, who holds the adaptation rights.

(ETA 6/16/18) Freeform, however, has exclusive rights to this show indefinitely and it goes no where unless Freeform chooses to give them up. (this is a correction as I was mistaken before in believing the distribution rights would revert to Constantin after Freeform turned down Season 4)

@netflix doesn’t own Shadowhunters either. Netflix “leases” the international distribution rights from Freeform.

The money Netflix and Freeform pay Constantin for those rights funds production of the show.

Itunes, Amazon Video and Hulu all have domestic streaming of the show as well as Freeform.

Hulu likely acquires its streaming arrangement from Freeform, as the show carries the Freeform logo on Hulu. This makes sense; Disney owns part Hulu and all of Freeform.

I don’t know if Amazon and Itunes carry SH internationally, and I don’t know if they have their domestic streaming agreement from Freeform or from Constantin. I DO know they have a different streaming format than Freeform; you buy the episodes individually or the season entirely, rather than paying for a subscription service (I don’t think the show is on Amazon Prime as part of their subscription package, but I could be wrong.)

Something to keep in mind going forward:

Freeform is a business, and it’s going to be more helpful to us to regard this stance on the issue in terms of cost/benefit analysis, rather than assuming pettiness or malice or vindictiveness. I know having a villain in this scenario fires us up and keeps us raring for the fight, and we need that energy, but ultimately it’s not helpful in drilling down to the core issues and finding solutions.

Stupidity and tone-deafness are definitely sins we could probably fairly lay at their door, however. They have clearly underestimate both the passion of their audience and the importance of this show on a societal level, and those are tragic, foolish mistakes.

Shadowhunters and Freeform: A History:

As anyone who has ever looked at leasing versus buying a car or apartment will tell you, there are certain benefits to both arrangements, but usually in the long run it costs less to own something rather than to lease it. Which means that Freeform isn’t making as much money off SH as it is off the shows that are actually Freeform originals.

Why did Freeform acquire the distribution rights, then?

Well, ABC Family was intending to rebrand as Freeform and go after the millennial crowd, and it needed some new, edgier, more adult, more diverse, less family-oriented shows than The Fosters or whatever.

They also wanted to break into the streaming market instead of going with a live-airing-only model.

A show like Shadowhunters, based off a series of books their target audience enjoyed growing up, was obviously a good bet. Especially since that audience is largely comprised of binge-watching cord-cutters.

The goal, then, was to use Shadowhunters to draw the new audience in and to have it “shepherd” less established, Freeform-original franchises by hoping the SH viewers would stick around to watch whatever was in the 9pm time slot. And that worked well for them.

But once Freeform had a number of other, original shows doing somewhat well, the “benefit” side of the cost/benefit ratio began to decrease. It’s an expensive show to produce that isn’t performing well in live ratings and whatever money they’re making off it, they have to give a hefty portion of that to Constantin Film.

The cost (at least in terms of lost potential revenue) was further compounded by the fact that Shadowhunters was occupying a very coveted time-slot, 8PM, for 20 weeks of the year. That is a massive piece of prime-time real estate to give to a show that is no longer really needed to perform the functions they once required from it.

Malec_Immortal over on Twitter posted a pretty astute (if somewhat vitriolic) series of tweets about how you can identify the timeframe when Freeform made the decision to stop investing so heavily in Shadowhunters. YouTuber Trini did a side-by-side comparison of the effort the Freeform Twitter put into promoting s2 and the effort they put into promoting s3 and it couldn’t really be more blatant.) Now, maybe they might have continued with the show had season 3 performed better in the live ratings, but it’s obvious they were all about reducing their cost while trying to glean what dwindling benefit they could from it.

I think it’s clear that Freeform was still promoting the show up through August, at least, because the cast’s appearance at SDCC was an obvious investment that doesn’t appear to have been used to promote any other Freeform properties (though perhaps a few Disney ones) but by NYCC in October, it’s obvious that they had slotted SH into the role of mentor/veteran show whose primary purpose was to pull in viewers for Freeform’s other, wholly owned properties.

Perhaps if SH had performed well enough in live-airing views to justify a continued investment, Freeform wouldn’t have wanted to reduce their episode order for season 4, but that didn’t happen. At that point, the cost of continuing with a full 20-episode season outweighed the benefit. They tried to negotiate for a reduced season order, Netflix wasn’t happy with that, and now here we are.

Where does that leave us?

Freeform got the drop on everyone in terms of setting the narrative for this whole thing. They blamed it on Netflix for yanking out of their distribution deal and leaving Freeform holding the bag. In truth, however, it appears the only reason Netflix pulled out is because Freeform violated an agreement by demanding a shorter season for s4.

Which makes sense. Of course Netflix would want more and Freeform would want less; this show has always performed better on streaming and internationally than it has on live television.

I think it’s clear that somewhere along the way, Freeform (while not abandoning its streaming emphasis) has reverted to considering live-viewing ratings in its considerations. An obvious example is Beyond. Beyond performed well enough in its first season (shepherded, as it were, by Shadowhunters) to get a second season, but a large part of its success was the fact that it was dropped all at once for streaming-on-demand. For whatever reason, Freeform decided that wasn’t profitable and went to a different model for season 2, and Beyond performed abysmally and got the axe.

Unfortunately for us, they’ve been applying the Beyond-season2 model all along, which means Shadowhunters hasn’t been performing as well either by their calculations (though a great deal of that is down to reduced marketing and just using the show as a vehicle to promote other, Freeform-original properties. 

For all that they claimed it wasn’t about the ratings and was “purely economical” you can’t divorce the economics of a show from the ratings if you’re using a live-air-viewing model. They needed that coveted 8pm timeslot for something that would be more profitable. They could have moved SH to a less valuable time slot, but then it wouldn’t make them enough money to earn back what they were spending on the distribution license (which funds production.)

Yeah yeah yeah, but what does this mean for the show getting picked up?

To put it frankly, our biggest obstacle here on multiple fronts is season 3b. Specifically, it’s the fact that Freeform has pushed 3b back to Spring of 2019. That is screwing our efforts over, big time.

These are episodes that are already in the can. The final cut of 3x20 has been produced, according to Todd Slavkin. And these are episodes that Freeform owns and still hasn’t aired.

No one is going to want to acquire this show until 3b has aired. (Assuming Freeform is willing to let anyone acquire it.) Which means no one is going to want to acquire it until Summer of 2019. And we probably wouldn’t get season 4 until spring of 2020 at the earliest.

I can’t think of a single other show that has been canceled with half the season still month away from being aired like this. And if it has happened, it probably wasn’t picked up by anyone else (if at all) until after the season was done.

Look at it this way. It’s obvious from their CEO’s tweets that Constantin would love to see the distribution rights pass to someone else (probably Netflix.) Netflix may even be willing to pick them up (if Freeform is willing to sell,) considering that who Constantin’s CEO tagged in his tweets.

But what happens to those 10 episodes that are in the can? Whoever picks the show up has to wait until Freeform is done airing those eps before they can begin marketing, and probably even filming.

Maybe someone would be willing to pay Freeform for those eps, but that’s highly unlikely. What new network wants to start a show mid-season like that? And would they even be willing to pay enough for Freeform to recoup their losses on production AND potential losses on advertising? A new network will want the story to be in a place where new viewers who have never seen it before will be able to tune in and quickly pick up on what is going on, and considering the cliffhanger S3a left off on, that’s...not something anyone EXCEPT Netflix (or maybe Hulu or Amazon, who already have the previous episodes in their libraries) would want to pick up. That pretty much rules out...every other network.

Furthermore, again, the show has always done best streaming. Odds are good that ONLY a streaming service is going to want the show.

Some questions we need to ask:

Will whoever acquires the show be paying Freeform to “adopt” their distribution license, or will Freeform’s distribution license lapse and a new license need to be negotiated with Constantin? (ETA 6/16/18: we appear to have an answer on that.)

Also, CAN Freeform even get out of the plan to film/air the 2-hour finale at this point? The contract has probably already been negotiated. Unless they somehow have an option to back out of it, they’re committed.

So, it may be that they HAVE to make that episode. Which probably won’t begin filming until season 4 would have begun filming, probably around August.  Which probably means the earliest they could air the season/episode is in January and we would HAVE to wait until spring/summer of 2019 before anyone else can pick up this show. IF they’re willing to pick up this show. If potential buyers see interest has waned because of the long wait and general frustration and disgust, they’re not going to want the show.

Will potential buyers even be interested if the show has run out of book-based material? The 2-hour finale is supposed to wrap up the final book of the series, and while our main concern is that 2 hours won’t be enough to do all that material justice (especially with any non-book-based plotlines also needing to be resolved.) Any future seasons would, in essence, be a spin-off using the same characters. Can Constantin even do that with the adaptation rights?

So what do we do?

I’m not saying we should stop fighting, not at all, but I’m saying we need to conserve our energy because this is going to be a very long haul. It’s a situation that is messy and complicated beyond any other show that I’ve ever heard of being cancelled and picked up by another network. We very likely won’t see any fruit from our labors until after 3b and the finale air, whenever that may happen. I think with the negative publicity we’re generating, Freeform may find it useful to get us out of their hair sooner rather than later, but the time required to produce the finale ep is an issue there. 

We really need more answers to know how to most effectively apply pressure to get the show renewed. Our best bet for getting those answers is the same place we’ve gotten the information we have so far; interviews and articles. Some media outlets are already latching onto this story (and largely supporting us, or reporting that we’re not going away) but we need to keep making this A STORY in order to get them to report on it (and hopefully use their access to get more answers than we have.)

HOWEVER I could be wrong about any or all of this. OUR BEST BET IS TO CONTINUE BEING LOUD. DO NOT STOP TRYING TO GET THE SHOW PICKED UP.

[juniperlikethetree]

No buy-year goals

Yesterday I thought my second post would be about my rules for the no buy-year I’ll begin in September. However, I haven’t yet been able to decide on the rules, so I thought I’d instead reflect on why I want to do a no buy year. Thinking about my goals for the year might clarify what I need to do to reach them. So far, these are my main motivators:

1. Living more sustainably

Like many others, I worry a lot about climate change and everything it entails. There are honestly few things I worry about as much, and among other things it has caused me to not want children because I cannot in good conciousness bring children into a world which is on the brink of global disaster.

While I as a single person can’t do very much about climate change, I feel like I need to do my part, which is to lessen my negative impact on the environment as much as I can. One of the easiest steps I can take is to consume less and to consume more ethically. A no buy-year will hopefully teach me to live with less and to be more resourceful.

2. Learning to curb my cravings

I’m not someone who shops a lot or likes to spend their free time browsing through clothes stores, but I get these moments of intense cravings which have caused some regrettable purchases. I might suddenly feel a very sudden need to buy something, and I’ll waste a lot of time considering whether to get an item or not. Examples of things I’ve craved are:

- A Kitchenaid. I love baking, and I decided I really need one of those Kitchenaid machines that look like they’d survive a nuclear blast. I spent hours researching models, comparing prices etc. Because they are so expensive, I considered saving up specifically for one for a few months. In the end I couldn’t justify spending hundreds on one, and didn’t buy one.

- A Fitbit bracelet. I thought it would motivate me to move more and I’d become fit and healthy. I bought one, used it for a week and got tired of it.

- A 15 kg sack of potatoes that cost like 10 €. For some reason, I thought this would be a smart purchase despite the fact that I rarely even eat potatoes and at the time I had nowhere to store 15 kg of potatoes. I did not buy the potatoes, but I spent far too long at the store debating on whether to buy them or not.

- A silk button up shirt. I thought wearing one would make me seem sophisticated and stylish. I bought a lovely one I found at an outlet for a very reasonable price. However, I have absolutely nowhere to wear it at the moment because due to the corona virus I’m mostly at home where it is not reasonable to dress in silk.

While it’s probably normal to get these cravings, I hate how they end up taking up so much of my time. I like to research things before I buy them, and every time I get a craving for an expensive item I’ll spend hours researching it. Doing research before spending a bunch of money is of course reasonable, but I hate it when I crave something ultimately useless (the Fitbit…) and then hours of my life goes to browsing for the best model and price.

I hope doing a no buy-year will help me either ignore or get rid of these cravings. I’m tired of suddenly realising I’ve spent hours of my life researching a product that I don’t actually need.

3. Learning to make smart, well thought through purchases

This somewhat ties into the previous goal, but I want to learn how to really differentiate between purchases that will actually be useful to me and what’s not worth buying. One example of this is clothes. I find it pretty hard to find my own style, and this leads to periods when I suddenly buy far too many clothes that I think will fit my style. I will also suddenly feel like I really need more of x item, and I’ll buy a bunch of them (mostly online), just to quickly realise that I didn’t choose very well and the things aren’t very nice. Most recently, I felt like I needed more shirts, and I bought a bunch online just to gradually realise that I don’t really like them and they are all quite poor quality. So now I have a pile of cheap shirts that will soon look worn and that I don’t particularly like.

What I would like is to own things that I really like, that are durable and that fill all my needs so that I don’t get these sudden cravings for whatever I feel like I’m lacking. For example, I think my ultimate wardrobe would consist of really classic, slightly vintage styled clothes made of natural and durable fibers. Everything would go easily together, and getting dressed would be easy. I don’t mind some ”extra” work like hand washing certain items if I really love them.

I hope a no buy-year will give me time to consider what I really need in my life. Buying a bunch of cheap shirts won’t fix the fact that my wardrobe is badly thought through and consists of clothing in far too many different styles. I might actually allow for some purchases during the year, as long as the items are things I know I’ll love and use for a long time.

4. Saving money (and maybe also investing it)

The final major motivator is saving more money. I know it’s pointless, but I sometimes think about all the money I’ve spent on useless, stupid things. My financial goals are to build up a good savings account, pay back my student loan and to save money for some more expensive things I know are coming (mostly house renovations.) I would also like to learn about investing.

I’ll probably write a more detailed post about my financial goals, but summing up my goal for the no buy-year is to not spend my money on stupid stuff.

This turned out to be a very long post, but I think it has helped me to see more clearly what I want to achieve. Now I just need to decide on some rules.

[advisorjack]

BEST BLACK STRIPE SHOWER CURTAINS

# Preview Product Rating 1

AmazerBath Fabric Shower Curtain, Black Stripe Polyester... No ratings yet Check Discounted Price 2

Elrene Home Fashions Farmhouse Living Homestead Stripe... No ratings yet Check Discounted Price 3

DaringOne 72x78 inch Fabric Shower Curtain,Stripe Shower... No ratings yet Check Discounted Price 4

Aimjerry Black and White Fabric Shower Curtain for... 204 Reviews Check Discounted Price 5

Kate Spade New York Harbour Stripe Shower Curtain, Black No ratings yet Check Discounted Price 6

Bathage Modern Stripe Fabric Shower Curtain - Exclusive... 56 Reviews Check Discounted Price 7

Aimjerry Waterproof Striped Fabric Shower Curtain Black and... No ratings yet Check Discounted Price 8

Nautical Stripe Design Shower Curtains Bathroom Accessories... 92 Reviews Check Discounted Price 9

Biscaynebay Textured Fabric Shower Curtains, Printed... 627 Reviews Check Discounted Price 10

Lush Decor 16T000209 Bohemian Striped Shower Curtain... 1,067 Reviews Check Discounted Price

We always keep receiving tons of questions related to buyers who are going to buy BEST BLACK STRIPE SHOWER CURTAINS. Because spending money on quality products is important, Jack will help you to get your best-desired product which you are searching for. There are lots of questions in mind such as

What are Top 10 BLACK STRIPE SHOWER CURTAINS for 2020 for 2021 or even 2019 (The older Models)?

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Is the product we referring Assured & Justifies its price?

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THE LIST OF 10 BEST BLACK STRIPE SHOWER CURTAINS ARE FOLLOW:

HURRY#1 BestSeller

AmazerBath Fabric Shower Curtain, Black Stripe Polyester...

PREMIUM QUALITY - Made of 100% polyester fabric. Feels soft and comfortable. Water repellent and odorless. The 120 GSM (gram per square meter) shower curtain is 100g heavier than the same size 91 Gsm shower curtains of other...

2 HEAVY DUTY CLEAR STONES: Heavy duty clear stones on bottom corners make the item get more weight to reduce curtain blowing.

REINFORCED METAL HOLES - 12 rust-resistant metal grommets fit most curtain hooks. The 72"x72" curtain fits most standard-sized bathtubs and showers.

EASY CLEANING - Machine washable and dries quickly. Strong fabric and tight hem could avoid shrinkage and deformation. Please do not bleach it.

CLASSIC DESIGN - Classic pattern and lovely color make your bathroom fabulous. Beautifies your home decor. Brings you a brilliant home and a bright mood.

$25.99 −38%

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HURRY#2 BestSeller

Elrene Home Fashions Farmhouse Living Homestead Stripe...

Sold as a single shower curtain measuring 72"W x 72"L

Features a stylish stripe pattern in light black and tan.

Header features 12 button holes; hooks/rings not included

Premium quality 100% cotton; Easy care, machine washable

Coordinate to the entire Farmhouse Living Collection

$30.99 −24%

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#3 BestSeller

DaringOne 72x78 inch Fabric Shower Curtain,Stripe Shower...

72" x 78" Large Size

This shower curtain fits any standard size shower/tub.

WASH CARE: Machine washable in cold water with mild detergent and hang to dry. Don't bleach or tumble dry.

HIGH DEFINITION PRINTING: This shower curtain uses digital printing technology. The vivid color makes this shower curtain become a artwork.

SUPER-QUALITY: This shower curtain is made of environmentally friendly materials, waterproof and heavy-duty. The material is environmentally friendly and non-toxic.

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#4 BestSeller

204 Reviews

Aimjerry Black and White Fabric Shower Curtain for...

1.The product is very safe.Material and material are polyester fabrics

Waterproof: Waterproof products do not require additional products, so that you can better enjoy the bath

3.The product contains 12 stainless steel buckles that allow you to use it longer.

The bottom of the shower curtain contains lead wire, which is too light to put in the shower curtain.

5.curtain can be machine washed When the shower curtain is dirty, it can be washed in the washing machine again as new.

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#5 BestSeller

Kate Spade New York Harbour Stripe Shower Curtain, Black

Dress up a drab shower with this simple Kate Spade New York Harbor Stripe Shower Curtain for an elegant touch. The stripes add a contemporary look to your bathroom. Available in Beige, Black, Navy and Platinum.

Measures: 72 inch Hooks required, sold separately

Wash Care : Cool iron

Made in OEKO-TEX Standard 100 factory, an independent certification system that ensures textiles meet high safety and environmental standards.

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#6 BestSeller

56 Reviews

Bathage Modern Stripe Fabric Shower Curtain - Exclusive...

EASY CARE FABRIC - Fully water repellent, this polyester shower curtain is made out of our exclusive textured fabric. Our high-quality fabric drapes and feels like natural fiber, but wicks away water like an umbrella — no...

DESIGN - Bathage shower curtains are designed with a minimal aesthetic to bring elegance to your bathroom. Our grey stripe shower curtain features a grey and white stripe pattern over a bright white background printed on our...

CLEAN & GERM FREE - Say goodbye to mold and mildew — treated to be mildew resistant and repel all the stuff you never want to smell or see.

DURABLE & SUSTAINABLE - At 150 gsm our shower curtains are almost double the weight of most polyester shower curtains. That means they durable and sustainable, drape like natural cloth, yet are still light and airy enough to...

BATHAGE GIVES BACK - We started Bathage to make the modern shower curtains we wanted in our own bathroom but couldn’t find anywhere. We are proud to be partnered with 1% for the Planet, and donate 1% of our annual sales...

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#7 BestSeller

Aimjerry Waterproof Striped Fabric Shower Curtain Black and...

Curtains

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#8 BestSeller

92 Reviews

Nautical Stripe Design Shower Curtains Bathroom Accessories...

Made of polyester, Water-repellent. Sizes - 72 INCHES WIDE x 96 INCHES LONG.No Liner Needed Includes 12 White Plastic Hooks.

Durable Shower Curtain - Provides privacy and decorative appeal,use with or without curtain liner; Promotes water bead formation and prevents shower curtain soaking and bathroom floor messes.

SUPERIOR QUALITY, DURABLE SHOWER CURTAIN - No Chemical Odors.The shower curtain is sure to compliment any bathroom setting or bathroom color scheme, instantly updating any bathroom decor theme and providing an unparalleled,...

MACHINE WASHABLE IN COLD WATER - Vibrant colors, Clear image, No fading, No dyes harming health of your family.Do NOT bleach or tumble dry.

GUARANTEE - 90-day Exchange and Excellent Pre-sale Consulting and After-sale Customer Service.

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#9 BestSeller

627 Reviews

Biscaynebay Textured Fabric Shower Curtains, Printed...

Printed polyester fabric is special woven, textured with slubs. Lights can get through partly, providing romantic atmosphere.

100% superior quality and Eco-friendly polyester, long life use. Suitable for families and upscale hotels.

Made of 125gsm durable premium polyester fabric.

72 x 72 inches to fit standard tubs and showers, with 12 button holes in the head and a weighted hem at the whole bottom.

Machine wash cold with mild detergent; Use non-chlorine bleach. Tumble dry low and remove promptly. Wrinkle and fade Resistant.

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HURRY#10 BestSeller

1,067 Reviews

Lush Decor 16T000209 Bohemian Striped Shower Curtain...

Soft, 100% polyester fabric bathroom shower curtain with a bold, cute and unique design to enhance your space.

Fun, decorative design with floral and geometric striped patterns for a mix of modern and boho style shower curtain.

Lush Décor Boho stripe shower curtain is the ideal piece for your rustic, yet chic, bohemian bathroom decor.

Measures 72 x 72 inches. Pattern order on curtain may vary with purchase.

Easy to care for and safe to machine wash cold in a mesh laundry bag, gentle cycle and tumble dry low.

$48.00 −63%

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from WordPress https://advisorjack.com/best-black-stripe-shower-curtains/

[cbk1000]

So, my sister came over to our apartment today and we had a good long bitch about the work situation, and I found out a little more, although she can’t give me very many details because she promised our boss she wouldn’t say anything to me.

Firstly, let me just clarify: I keep referencing ‘our boss’ and then referring to a ‘she’ and ‘he’--I can’t remember if I mentioned this, but the clinic is run by a husband and wife, not one gender fluid manager who is being kind of an ass.

So, back at the beginning of September my sister first asked about her raise; she asked the wife (I’ll refer to her as ‘C’ from now on, and the husband as ‘L’ to avoid confusion instead of just referencing ‘our boss’), who said that she was right in the middle of taxes, so she’d have to look at it next week. A legit excuse; I know she’s always really harried during this time, and I don’t blame her for wanting to just get that out of the way first.

My sister didn’t hear anything more about it, so in October she popped in to remind C about it, thinking she may have forgotten because she was so busy. C said she had actually forgot about it till a few days ago, when she’d asked her husband. She said it was in discussion, and that they were talking numbers, which very heavily implies the raise is a sure thing, it’s just a matter of hashing out exactly how much it’s going to be. So, apparently, back in October, the raise was all but decided upon, it was just a matter of settling dollar amounts.

A few days ago when I first posted about this situation (Dec. 4th, my archive tells me), she had gone in to C’s office to ask yet again about the raise, because she first inquired about it three months ago, and was starting to get irritated, feeling as if she were being put off. It was then that C told her all this stuff. I outlined the basics in this post, so I won’t rehash it now. 

C is very upset, basically. She did not want to tell my sister any of this because she was hoping to just delicately handle it behind the scenes, but I think she felt she couldn’t put her off with some lame excuse since it had been three months since my sister initially asked for the raise. There are some gaps in my knowledge of events because my sister told me just enough to avoid breaking her promise to C, but essentially, L is fed up with people bitching about us even though none of the complaints actually have anything to do with our productivity and the quality of our work, so we’re basically being punished because fellow co-workers are whiny shitbabies. C is trying to get the raise, but she is not entirely sure how to go about it because once L gets something in his head, he can become fixated on it; he also will act like nothing’s wrong for a long time and then suddenly be super pissed about something minor (this is not just her trying to play Good Cop and make it look like she’s on our side, I’ve seen it happen many times). 

We assume C did not want my sister telling me the whole story because she knows I am very confrontational, and she really, really does not want us to leave, and I think she’s afraid I’d be justifiably pissed if I knew everything and would get into a blow-out with L that would end either with A. Me quitting on the spot B. Him firing me on the spot. My sister said she was clearly very upset and is obviously worried this is going to result in one or the both of us leaving. I know she really does not want that, because back in 2014 I asked for a raise a few months before I left on my trip, and one of the first things she said was, “Yes, we can definitely talk about that; L and I most definitely do not want to lose you”; I hadn’t implied (or at least I hadn’t intended to), that I would look for another job if they didn’t give me more money, but me leaving was her first concern, and within probably a week, my sister and I had both got a raise.

I do not want to punish her, and L is not a bad person, but his management skills are often severely lacking, and as I said in a previous post, if he is going to cater to the asshole employees who are always causing problems and punish the good ones who show up on time, do their job without getting into personal conflicts or constantly wasting his time with petty complaints, then I think he needs to see that there are repercussions. People will eventually get fed up, and I don’t think either one of us deserves to be treated this way. My sister said she thinks he feels safe doing this because we’ve been there for so long, and he just figures we won’t leave, but this is pretty much the straw that broke the camel’s back for me, and I’m trying to persuade her to look into other opportunities as well. We have been fed up for a while that some of the doctors upstairs are basically dictating how the filing system is laid out when we have told L over and over again that they (and he) are cluttering up the system with redundant categories that we already use, categories that will be used once in a blue moon, and just in general making it more of a pain in the ass to navigate; there are not the ones who have to navigate all these categories, so I think our opinions on it should carry some pretty hefty weight. We have spoken with him about this several times, and each time he agrees with us, complains about what a pain in the ass it is to deal with people upstairs, and then just goes back to doing what we asked him no to do, so sitting down and having a candid discussion with him is not an option; we’ve addressed problems with him before, and he just keeps caving to whoever whines the loudest/most. I could play that game, but I have better things to do with my time, and I’m not going to try and outshout everyone else when I have a job to do and can make much better use of my day. Also, I’m a fucking adult, not an incontinent fucking preschooler. 

It is infinitely crappy that the raise it sounds like he was prepared to agree upon back in October is now being held hostage because he is fed up with some jerkoffs complaining that we talk to each other instead of staring blankly at a windowless cubicle for eight hours a day and run movies for background noise. He knows our productivity isn’t lacking; we have bins full of confidential documents waiting to be shredded, so it’s clear we’re going through a ton of paperwork; and if he wanted to, he knows where we keep the reports: he could check and see that the trays are nearly empty/empty when we leave for the day. The people upstairs also know we are productive and not just fucking around, because when we’re behind, the whole clinic knows: reports aren’t in the charts where they’re supposed to be, people have to call down constantly looking for paperwork, etc. Several of them have commented multiple times on how surprisingly fast we are, so this has nothing to do with anyone being adversely affected, which is the only complaint that should be relevant in the workplace, and everything to do with being petty fucksticks. We don’t even interact with most of these people; we don’t even SEE them because they’re busy upstairs and don’t have time to come downstairs (except when they need to spend 30 minutes of their day whining to C), and we go upstairs only rarely to fax records and check our box for paperwork that’s ready to be filed. Which, btw, is in the nurse’s station, so they see us constantly coming and going and grabbing papers, and are therefore definitely aware that we’re not just sitting around marathoning The Bachelor or whatever. And that’s what really pisses me off about this--whoever is complaining has to know that we are obviously just running shows and movies as background noise, because if we were actually sitting and watching them intently, we’d be way behind and the repercussions of that would be felt upstairs really quickly. If we’re behind, everyone’s behind, basically, since the doctors and nurses don’t have the necessary records to review for appointments, billing can’t find the insurance info they need, etc.

I feel bad for C because I fully believe she is trying her best to handle this in a way that doesn’t screw us over and doesn’t punish us for other people’s whining, but it’s been time for my sister and I to move on for a while, and even though this is shitty, I think there’s a slightly silver lining in that it’s giving us a push to just gtfo.

[allenmendezsr]

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    “Doctors Predicted Marijuana Will

Kill Me

. But Contrarily to their Prediction, I Reversed My Addiction 100% Naturally!”

Dear Friend,

Do you know the 2 SHOCKING REASONS why 9 out of every 10 people who try to quit smoking marijuana are destined to fail before they’ve even started?

What about the 3 LIES that have trapped you in a state of drug dependency, and made it almost impossible for you to quit?

If you value your health, I’d suggest that you take a few moments to answer the following questions:

Have you tried to quit smoking marijuana before but failed?

Do you often feel sleepy, suffer from a lack of energy, brain fog, or a loss of appetite?

Do you ever experience headaches, tremors, dizziness, cramps, nausea, or night sweats?

Do you sometimes feel anger – whether it be anger at the world, at people, or at yourself for no reason at all?

Do you ever feel like weed is holding you back, and preventing you from fulfilling your true potential in life?

Do you have trouble getting to sleep at night, or have you been experiencing nightmares when you do?

Have you found that your memory, focus and concentration aren’t as sharp as it once was?

And finally…

Do you suffer from depression, anxiety, paranoia, panic attacks, or even hallucinations?

If you answered “YES” to any of those questions, then you’re exactly in the right place…

Because by the end of this letter you will know exactly what you need to do to say goodbye to all of those problems and quit smoking marijuana.

“Here Are the LIES about Marijuana”

LIE #1 Marijuana is not as bad for your health as tobacco

Everyone tells you this the moment you start smoking marijuana.

The truth is, marijuana smoke contains more cancer-causing substances, known as carcinogens, than tobacco smoke.

A study published in The New England Journal of Medicine found that compared with smoking tobacco, smoking marijuana produced a FIVE FOLD increase of carbon-monoxide in the blood, a THREEFOLD increase in the amount of tar inhaled, and a THIRD MORE tar retained in the respiratory tract.

The American Lung Association (ALA) has also stated categorically that extended marijuana use wreaks havoc on the lungs, leading to chronic coughs, phlegm production, wheezing and bronchitis, and ultimately, lung cancer, as well as weakening the immune system, making you more vulnerable to illness and disease.

LIE #2 Marijuana won’t lead to harder drugs

That’s what they tell you, right? And that’s what you tell yourself.

You’re in control. You can stop whenever you want.

But get this…

A comprehensive national study by The Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia (CASA) found that kids between 12 and 17 who use marijuana are 85 TIMES MORE LIKELY to use cocaine than kids who don’t.

While adults 26 and older who used marijuana as children are 17 TIMES MORE LIKELY to be regular cocaine users.

Yes, marijuana is a gateway drug – whatever you want to tell yourself, so if you haven’t moved onto cocaine yet, or even heroin, the chances are, you will do soon, and it will destroy your life.

LIE #3 Weed isn’t dangerous to your health

This is the biggest lie of all.

Many people will tell you how marijuana isn’t dangerous. But who are these people? Are they the same people trying to sell you some pot? Or using it, and trying to justify it?

As you’ve just seen, marijuana is toxic to the lungs. In fact, a study published in the European Respiratory Journal found that for every year a person smokes pot, they are 8% MORE LIKELY to develop lung cancer.

So if you’ve been smoking for 10 years, you’re 80% more at risk of getting lung cancer than if you hadn’t smoked at all.

BUT HERE’S THE GOOD NEWS!

“Today, I’m Going to Show You An

ALL-NATURAL

& Easy Way to

STOP Smoking Marijuana

, So You Can Get Your Life Back!”

Regardless of your age, level of addiction, or whether you’ve been hooked on weed for 10 days or 10 years, this breakthrough system will allow you to…

Quit your marijuana habit for good

Crush your cravings

Eliminate withdrawal symptoms

Sleep like a baby

And do it in a matter of days.

And more importantly…

Reclaim your body and mind

Improve your energy levels, vitality and health

And unlock the door to a brighter future where ANYTHING is possible

Best of all, you can do it…

Without the need for any expensive rehab treatments.

Without needing to visit or speak to anyone who might judge you.

Without any unpleasant ‘cold turkey’ side effects.

Without leaving the comfort and privacy of your own home.

And without having to spend a single cent.

“It’s Time to Take Control of Your Life!”

Hi, my name is Martin and I started smoking weed when I was 18.

Before then, I’d never even seen a joint, let alone smoked one. But at a friend’s party, they offered me my first joint.

I was reluctant, but everyone around me was smoking and I didn’t wanted to be the odd one out.

So I took it…It was like a warm wave washing away all of my worries, youthful anxieties and hang-ups, until every last one disappeared in a puff of sweet smelling smoke.

I felt happy, and relaxed – without a care in the world.

“Why the heck hadn’t I tried this earlier? This is incredible” I thought to myself.

From that day onwards, I smoked every day.

Until…

I was Diagnosed with Acute Bronchitis

The Doctor walked into the room, gave me a stern look and slapped an MRI scan up on the wall in front of me. “The cell linings of your lungs are badly damaged” said the doctor. “And if you don’t stop smoking marijuana right now, you will get cancer soon. It will happen.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I’d just turned 30, yet the doctor was telling me I was on the road to lung cancer.

Was I really going to die because of pot?

It was clear to me that marijuana was putting my life in danger, and I had to do something about it – AND FAST.

The following week, I signed up to Marijuana Anonymous and their 12-step Recovery Program

Did it work?

NO!

Despite following the plan, I was back on weed within days -because the withdrawal symptoms were brutal.

Plus, in order to quit, I had to keep going to meetings with the kinds of people I was desperately trying to get away from!

I couldn’t believe how far these people had fallen – and all because of weed.

There was a MIT graduate, a lawyer, a doctor. These were educated people – but they’d all been unable to quit the habit.

In fact, the 12 Step approach has proven to be a massive failure, with a success rate of just between 5-10%.

In other words, it doesn’t work for 9 out of every 10 people.

And other techniques like motivational enhancement therapy, neuro linguistic programming, and Cognitive behavioral therapy consistently fail in greater numbers.

After years of trying and failing to stop my addiction there was only one option left…

“I had to Find a Solution

Myself

”

I realized that the traditional treatments, like Marijuana Anonymous, counselling, cognitive therapy and the rest, wouldn’t work for me, and I didn’t had more money to waste on more rehab clinics.

I knew I had to do this myself – and find a different way to quit marijuana.

And this is when things really started to change.

I went on the internet, and meticulously researched anything I could find related to addiction.

Surprisingly, I found out that thousands of other people were in the same situation as I was – trying to overcome their addiction.

I also visited the National Library of Medicine and devoured every book there was on marijuana use, withdrawal, THC, and how to expel it from the bloodstream.

And after all of that research…

“I finally Landed on a Proven way to Quit Marijuana”

After the first couple days, when I normally felt intense cravings for marijuana, I felt nothing.

In the past, I’d always get intense withdrawal symptoms whenever I tried to quit, like night sweats, tremors, dizziness, nausea, vivid nightmares, and I would suffer terrible insomnia, leaving me so exhausted the next day that all I wanted to do was lie down on the bed and smoke a giant bag of weed.

But I felt none of these symptoms.

I slept like a baby, and woke feeling refreshed and energised, instead of drowsy and listless.

After a week, my memory became sharper, and I was loving watching quiz shows again, amazed at how many answers I knew!

My focus and concentration improved dramatically, and for the first time in years, my mind felt clear and alert.

It was like a switch had been turned back on in my brain, and suddenly everything was clearer.

I started enjoying food again, as if my taste buds had been reactivated.

And the anxiety, depression and paranoia that had ruined my life for years literally VANISHED.

But best of all, the system reawakened my ambition, motivation, and interests that I hadn’t enjoyed for over a decade.

Quitting weed was the best decision I ever made in life – and I was shocked at just how easily I’d been able to do it, and never look back, and it was all thanks to a simple system.

I wondered if it would for other people too.

After all, I couldn’t keep it to myself. I had old friends who wanted to quit – but couldn’t – and I wanted to help them.

So I started sharing it with as many people as possible.

And every single one of them was able to quit marijuana.

AND NOW YOU CAN TOO!

INTRODUCING…

Marijuana No More™

Marijuana No More™ is a proven, step-by-step system for quitting marijuana. So far it has worked for thousands of people all over the world – and it will work for you too, or your money back.

HERE ARE JUST A FEW THINGS YOU’LL DISCOVER IN Marijuana No More™

My proven, step-by-step ACTION PLAN for quitting weed! Follow this simple plan from the comfort of your own home, and I guarantee you’ll be clean or your money back.

The most common myths about weed DEBUNKED. We all think we know the ‘facts’ about marijuana. But you’ll be shocked when you discover the real truth!

8 TELL-TAIL SIGNS that you’re an addict. Admitting that you’re addicted is the first step on the road to recovery. Here I reveal 8 signs to look out for.

7 things you MUST do if you want to quit marijuana – And what you absolutely must NOT!

4 time-tested and proven methods for AVOIDING TEMPTATION. Stick to this plan and you will never feel the need to take another toxic puff again.

Natural foods proven to BANISH BRAIN FOG and increase clarity, focus and concentration. As a long-term pot smoker, I had no idea how clouded my mind was. After eating these 100% natural ‘brain foods’ my mind felt sharper and clearer than ever!

1 sneaky secret for banishing your MARIJUANA CRAVINGS. This technique works like a dream, and I wouldn’t have been able to quit without it.

The most effective activity for ELIMINATING STRESS & ANXIETY . Feeling stressed and anxious is why so many people fall off the wagon and start smoking weed again. Here I reveal the #1 thing you need to do to banish stress and anxiety for good, 100% naturally.

Proven techniques that will have you drifting off to SLEEP QUICKLY, with no need for dangerous pills. Insomnia is one of the worst withdrawal symptoms, and a lack of sleep can crush your progress when trying to quit. I reveal how to get a great night’s sleep every night, without a bag of pot or a sleeping pill in sight!

Plus much more!

Below you can find some of the results that Marijuana No More™ has achieved for my customers…

“I will be forever grateful for helping me out”

“Hi Martin, I just wanted to say thank you for everything you’ve done. I started smoking weed in college and my grades gradually began to fall. I soon started to suffer from depression, anxiety and paranoia. I lost trust in all of my friends and family, and become so scared I would barely go out. Thanks to your system I now have my life back. I had no idea what I was doing to myself. I will be forever grateful for helping me out before it was too late.”

Ben Masterson of Flint, Michigan,

“If you want to quit but are finding it hard, you have to try this”

“The day I got introduced to pot was the day I decided to waste 12 years of my life. Before I discovered weed, I had the world at my feet. My friends told me it was just a bit of fun, and that it wasn’t addictive or dangerous or anything like that. They couldn’t have been more wrong. My life was going nowhere until I found your system. Within days the difference was incredible. I haven’t smoked a joint in months or touched anything harder. If you want to quit but are finding it hard, you have to try this.”

Mark Samson of Elgin, Illinois

“My memory, focus and concentration is back”

“When I started smoking weed I thought it was dead cool. But then all of my friends went onto get good jobs, get married and have kids, while I went nowhere – and blamed everyone and everything but me. It was only years later that I realized that weed had robbed me of my life, and turned me into a ‘stoner’. Thanks to your system I now feel like a different person. My memory, focus and concentration is back and I’m now excited about the future for the first time in my life.”

Charlotte Felix of Orange County, Florida

“I feel a million times happier”

“I started smoking weed at a young age and was spending almost $300 a month on pot. It was money that could have gone into a deposit on a house or a new car. Over the years, I blew thousands on weed, and will never get that money back. I tried to quit so many times but never could. Luckily I found your website and managed to quit after following your system. I haven’t smoked since and feel a million times happier”

Pete Gibson – Spokane, Washington

* Testimonials Published With Customer Permission.

As you’ve seen, Marijuana No More™ works – and it will work for you too.

So the next question you’re probably asking yourself is this…

“How Much Will It Cost Me To Get My Hands On

Marijuana No More™

?”

Well, considering the system has already helped thousands of people to quit weed and transform their lives – when every other technique they tried FAILED – I think you’d agree that it’s worth a lot of money.

And not only that, just think how much money this system will save you once you’ve finally kicked your weed habit.

I mean, what are you spending on pot right now? $50 a month? $100? $300?

More?

Whatever it is, just think what you could do with that money, instead of smoking it.

And added to that…

Quitting weed now will save you thousands on future healthcare costs

You’ve already seen that marijuana is scientifically proven to increase the risk of lung cancer by 8% for every year you smoke, raise the risk of bronchitis, as well as compromising your immune system, leaving you more vulnerable to infection, illness and disease.

… Not to mention leaving you sterile if you’re man, or raising a child with severe birth defects if you’re woman.

These are the very real risks if you continue smoking weed.

So there’s little doubt that this system has the power to not only save you a lot of money during your lifetime, but literally transform your health and wellbeing.

People who’ve used this system keep telling me I should be charging at least $1,000, because of how fast and effective it is.

And even then, it would

still be a bargain.

So here’s the deal

I’m not going to ask you to pay anywhere near $1,000 for this, even though the value of this system far exceeds that figure.

In fact, I’m not going to ask you to pay $500… or even $100 for that matter.

Because all I’m really trying to do here is cover my costs so I can keep this website running, and be in a position to help as many people as possible.

So for that reason, and for a limited time only, I’m making Marijuana No More™ available for only…

NOTE: Marijuana No More™ is a digital product. You will receive access to the entire system immediately after you order – even if it’s 2am!

That’s right…

JUST $37 to get your hands on a proven system for stopping smoking marijuana… a system that has changed my life, and has been proven to work time and time again for hundreds and thousands of other people right across the world

With Marijuana No More™, there will be…

NO MORE smoking your life away

NO MORE crippling or painful withdrawal symptoms

NO MORE anger, guilt or frustration at your inability to quit

NO MORE worries about marijuana wrecking your health

NO MORE anxiety, paranoia, panic attacks or hallucinations

NO MORE insomnia, brain fog, or fatigue

NO MORE wasting another cent on marijuana munchies, detox kits, rehab or overpriced therapy

This system is safe, cheap, natural and PROVEN to work.

And the best thing is, you don’t even need to step outside your front door to benefit from it.

That’s why this is such a no-brainer.

But that’s not all!

“I’m Also Going to Give You These Incredible Bonuses,

Absolutely Free!

”

BONUS #1: 7-Day Marijuana Cleanse – VALUE: $67 (FREE!)

Remember earlier when I talked about how THC stays in your bloodstream for weeks, and even months after your last smoke, making it almost impossible for you to quit? Well it’s true. If you really want to quit, you absolutely must cleanse your body of THC first.

In this 7-Day THC Cleanse, I reveal the proven step-by-step process you need to destroy THC, remove the toxins in your bloodstream and cleanse your system, so you suffer zero withdrawal symptoms, sleep like a baby, and quit weed forever.

Believe me, quitting weed doesn’t get any easier than this.

The 7-Day THC Cleanse is valued at $97, but you’re getting it absolutely free with the Marijuana No More™ System.

BONUS #2: Detox Your Body: $47 (YOURS FREE!)

Detoxification is the best way to rid your body of toxins, which can slow it down and make it unhealthy.

After the detox is completed, you will feel “lighter” and have more energy. Also, since a detox is used to clear away free radicals, your body’s immune system will be stronger and you will have a lower risk of getting serious illnesses.

Finally, detoxification will clear your blood, helping it circulate better.

BONUS #3: What to Eat & What to Avoid: $37 (YOURS FREE!)

To make sure that your stay in optimal healthy condition, you need to learn what to eat and what to avoid.

This comprehensive guide is a very useful read not just for addicts but also to everyone who wishes to improve his diet.

BONUS #4: Lifetime Updates Guarantee – (YOURS FREE!)

I’m always looking to improve The Marijuana No More™ program, because I want to make sure that you get the best possible results both now, and in the future too. So when I update the system and add new techniques that I’ve discovered, you’ll be the first to know! In fact, I will send you the new, updated edition straight to your inbox, absolutely free!

BONUS #5: Customer Support By Author – (YOURS FREE!)

And if all that’s not enough, I will also be on hand to provide you with all the advice and guidance you need, and answer any questions you may have about the Marijuana No More™ program. So feel free to send me an email (address provided with your order) whenever you like, and as often as you like, and I will get back to you as soon as I can!

And I’m still not finished!

To show you that I’m genuine, and that I really do want to help you, I’m going to sweeten the deal EVEN FURTHER, by including the following…

Rock-Solid 100% Money-Back Guarantee!

If Marijuana No More™ doesn’t help you to quit smoking marijuana within 60 days, you don’t pay!

It’s as simple as that…

This system has been proven to work time and time again, so I’m more than happy to put my money where my mouth is, and provide this rock-solid 60-day money-back guarantee so that you can put it to the test in your own time, and at absolutely no financial risk to yourself whatsoever.

And if for

ANY reason you’re not 100% satisfied, or you simply change your mind, I will refund every single penny with no questions asked and no hard feelings!

So go ahead and order today, and try out Marijuana No More™ for a full 60 days on me…

You risk absolutely NOTHING!

NOTE: Marijuana No More™ is a digital product. You will receive access to the entire system immediately after you order – even if it’s 2am!

“Ok, it’s decision time…”

And you have 3 options…

OPTION #1: You can choose to do

nothing

, continue to watch your money go up in smoke, and carry on living in a dream world where your true potential is wasted forever.

You can continue to achieve less than you’re capable of, earn just a tiny fraction of what you should be earning, and sell yourself short for the rest of your life.

And you can increase your risk of lung cancer by a whopping 8% per year…

End up sterile if you’re a man, or pass on birth defects to your child if you’re a woman.

And you can increase your risk of being involved in a potentially fatal car crash, due to your senses being dulled, your judgement poorer and your reaction times slower.

But hey, are those the kind of risks you really want to take?

Or there’s option two…

OPTION #2: You can try to quit on your own, desperately fighting against THC’s classic withdrawal symptoms for weeks, or even months. Or you can seek ‘professional help’ and waste time and money on useless support groups like Marijuana Anonymous (with a pathetic 5-10% success rate), counselling sessions, motivational enhancement therapy, Cognitive behavioral therapy, and more.

But let’s face it, none of those strategies have worked for you right?

Because if they had, you wouldn’t be here.

OPTION #3:

Or you can take the smart, inexpensive and 100% NATURAL OPTION

The ONLY option.

And get a solution that will GUARANTEED you to quit marijuana or your money back!

And it can be yours in just 30 seconds for less than a couple of joints.

So instead of burning more of your money on pot, isn’t it about time you spent that money on yourself, your health, and your future?

Wouldn’t you like to have a sharper mind, an improved memory, increased energy, total focus, motivation and clarity?

Don’t you want better health, deeper relationships, more money, and the chance to achieve everything you’ve ever wanted in life?

Well now’s your chance to make it happen – and be free and clear of marijuana.

NOTE: Marijuana No More™ is a digital product. You will receive access to the entire system immediately after you order – even if it’s 2am!

So I urge you to make the right decision…

To make the best investment you will ever make…

… An investment in yourself, your health, and your future happiness.

P.S. Remember, this is the EXACT same step-by-step system that allowed me – and thousands like me – to quit weed easily.

And all you need to do to get the same results yourself is follow the step-by-step system!

P.P.S. Please bear in mind that the price of Marijuana No More™ is incredibly low, and has been deliberately kept low to help as many people as possible to kick their weed habit once and for all. However, I cannot guarantee that the price will remain this low on a permanent basis. So if you come back tomorrow and the price has changed to $77, $97 or more, you have been warned!

P.P.P.S. Being sceptical is natural, but I’ve made sure that there’s absolutely no risk to you!. When you order Marijuana No More™ you’re fully protected by my rock-solid 60-day money-back guarantee.

In short, if you’re not 100% happy with the program, you won’t pay a red cent.

“Marijuana No More™” Now >

“I was clean inside 3 weeks”

“I thought I was really cool when I was smoking weed. But at 28 I developed bronchitis and almost died. The doctor said it was 100% down to smoking weed, and if I didn’t quit, I’d be lucky to reach 40. It was a wakeup call. I spent 3 years desperately trying to quit, going to counselling, Marijuana Anonymous groups, psychotherapy, doctors, you name it. All of them failed. Then I found your website and your system really worked! I can’t thank you enough!”

Jason Fitzpatrick – Cambridge, Massachusetts

“I’m so much more productive”

“I just wanted to say that I have been following your system for the past weeks and I haven’t smoked at all. I feel sharper, more focused and my concentration levels have soared! I’m so much more productive at work too, and my boss has already noticed, telling me that if I keep it up a raise is on offer. I had no idea how much weed was dulling my senses and limiting my abilities. I’m so glad I found your system and would like to express my sincere thanks for all your hard work!”

Liz Draper, 30 – Manhattan, New York

“I have been clean for 8 months now”

“I wanted to thank you for helping me through the difficult process of quitting weed. I have been clean for 8 months now and feel no desire to turn back. I feel so much better without pot; more focused, more confidence and a higher self-esteem! I couldn’t have done it without your system.”

Bryce Daines – Norfolk, Virigina

“You should be charging at least triple this man!”

“I’ve admit, I was totally lost on pot, and I’d given up trying to give up. Pot was my crutch, but I realize now I was just using it to hide away from reality. The THC Cleanse was incredible, and removed all of the withdrawal symptoms I used to get, and the system is gold dust! I feel like I’ve woken up from a bad dream. Life is so much better without pot. I know that now. Thanks bro. I can’t believe how cheap your program was though. You should be charging at least triple this man!”

Nate Maitland – Trenton, New Jersey

“Marijuana No More™” Now >